A Whisp of the Atlantic, which might be the most pretentious and progressive song created by SOILWORK this far, is all about alienation.
”If you came from a different realm, like the Atlantis, how would you experience our world? Or, how do we deal with the fact that our planet is a very different place because of the pandemic, and that we all have things that we miss that we might never get to experience again in their original form? Or is the world we live in now actually already the sunken world, from the ruins of which we might one day be able to build something better? I’ve always felt that SOILWORK was a bit underrated as band, and that no one really understood what we were able to do. So I’ve had this dream for quite a few years to write a really epic song and show off what this band was really capable of”, David Andersson states. After listening to the monumental ‘A Whisp Of The Atlantic’ that is both the heart and the momentum of the new EP, no one will ever underestimate the Swedish modern metal force again.
Their musical and their philosophical approach on the new EP does not only close the circle of the ‘The Feverish Trinity’ but also invites the listener to dive deep into the most primal element: Water. “Fire is the element that fuels us today, but water is the element that we all came from, at least if you believe in evolutionary theory, which I do, wholeheartedly. And fire is the element that fuels the conflicts around the world, and it often has a lot to do with gender, sexual orientation or race. And I’m sad that these conflicts are still existing, when we should have had evolved much further”, David Andersson continues.
With that said, the red thread running through the whole record gets more and more visible, even to an uneducated eye. Starting with ‘Feverish’ and ending with ‘A Whisp Of The Atlantic’, the whole EP is a journey from the rage of individuals to the search for something that replaces religion. “From the desire of Feverish, the urge of Desperado, the determinism of Death Diviner, the insights and questions of The Nothingness and the Devil and the acceptance and spiritual searching of A Whisp of the Atlantic. The whole song and video sequence is like a slightly different take on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s all about realising that we’re all stuck on this rock and that we need to find something more inclusive than religion to get through this together. Because in the end, we’re all outsiders, genetically hunter-gatherers trying to fit in in a world that we created but at the same time wasn’t really made for us”, David Andersson sums up. “The overarching theme is liberation from the extremely low level of the social and cultural debate these days, and it starts with the fundamentals and ends with the phenomenological. From liberation into ascension.”
It is a journey that one must be willing to join, a discovery for those brave enough to search for hidden secrets. However, in the end, it is a win for everyone putting the record on since it features SOILWORK in their strongest and most iconic form ever. David Andersson elaborates: “Ever since I was young, I’ve always enjoyed listening to epics like Supper’s Ready by Genesis, songs that are a microcosmos in themselves, and now I finally got the chance to take a lot of the strange sounds I hear in my head and combine them in one song, but still within a metal context. I think that anyone who’s a true music fan will enjoy it, if they take the time to listen.”
Read our review here.
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!