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| HELVETETS PORT - Warlords LP | |
HRR 952LP, ltd 600, 200 x black, 300 x oxblood + 100 x white/ black marbled vinyl (HRR mailorder exclusive), 425gsm heavy cardboard cover, insert, download code | |
| Witchfinder - Lead Vocals K. Lightning - Lead Guitar Virgin Killer - Lead Guitar Earthquake - Bass Guitar O. Thunder - Drums | |
| 01 Black Knight 02 Wasteland Warriors 03 Mutant March 04 Hårdför Överman 05 Tyrants in Tokyo 06 Legions Running Wild 07 Cry of the Night 08 Helvete På Larvfötter 09 Key to the Future 10 Golden Axe 11 2049 | |
AVAILABLE | |
Gothenburg’s Helvetets Port issued their debut album »Exodus To Hell« on High Roller Records in 2009, followed by the »Man With The Chains« EP a year later. They returned with »From Life To Death« in 2019 before being stopped in their tracks by the global pandemic, like most other bands.
Singer Witchfinder explains the situation: “We didn’t have much time to play concerts between the last album release and the point when the pandemic came. We did however play one of the very first shows in Sweden after the restrictions were lifted! Otherwise we’ve been fiddling with new songs. It might not be as quick of a follow-up album as we would have wanted, but hey, at least we made it twice as quickly as last time! Or half as slowly ...”
Of course we are talking abut the brand record »Warlords«, which is a clear progression in comparison to the first two albums of the Swedes. Witchfinder continues: “With the release of »From Life To Death« we exhausted most of the material we had written up until then, which included a lot of older stuff.
This time around basically every part is newly written, save for the fact that it is five years between the albums, so not all super new in that sense. But like I often say, we’re not a band that needs to be in with the times. If a song takes zero or five years to come out, it would be just as dated.”
In other words: Helvetets Port’s style is timeless, sticking to the strict paradigm of traditional heavy metal music, but always trying to retain their individuality. “We delved deep into the dungeons of melancholic obscurity with »From Life To Death«,” characterizes Witchfinder the band’s last record and compares it to the new one “and now we felt like a change of pace. The sound on »Warlords« is more towards 1984 than 1981. It generally has a post-apocalyptic theme and the songs are a bit more straight forward.
Although straight forward when it comes to Helvetets Port might still be considered progressive by someone else ...”
“My personal favourite is probably ‘Mutant March’,” continues the singer, “which is a long epic song with lots of build-up. Like I said, many songs on this album are a bit more straight forward (at least in my ears), but when things turn epic, they turn epic in a big way and the straightforwardness surrounding it is in a way a vehicle to highlight the epicness even more. ‘Mutant March’ is a song whose lyrics I think would be considered super serious even by a non-heavy metal, ‘adult’ listener, as they are about the very existence of human life and not the sword and sorcery type lyrics.”
“2049” is another interesting song title. What’s it all about? “It’s loosely about a gang of people in a post-apocalyptic USA leaving their home on the West Coast, traveling to the East Coast in search of a better life,” elaborates the vocalist. “It happened to be the year 2049 since ‘nine’ sits well in the mouth and rhymes pretty well with things …”
From “2049” to “Legions Running Wild”, which might ring a bell. But musically it does not really bear any resemblance to the German band of the same name. It’s a song about the glory of heavy metal, isn’t it? “No, it doesn’t sound like Running Wild,” is Witchfinder’s answer, “actually the song title is influenced by a song by the Italian band Astaroth called ‘Legions Wanna Fight’, which I think is such a cool and strange song title. I’ve always had a soft spot for bands whose use of English is a bit unusual. The song is about the glorious relationship between a heavy metal band and their audience.”
“Golden Axe” is another highlight on Helvetets Port’s third studio album, coming across like a mixture of classic Heavy Load and Omen. “That’s a compliment!,“beams the singer, “Heavy Load have always been a big influence and to an extent Omen. ‘Golden Axe’ is the only ‘medieval’ song on the album, so we are letting you know we have not left that topic.”
Musically Helvetets Port have progressed a lot since the very beginning. Are they taking music more seriously now than in the early days or was it just a lack of experience? Witchfinder reflects: “Yes, it is definitely the case with the musicianship and somewhat the case with the musical compositions. We have always taken music very seriously, but in the beginning the technical aspects of it were secondary. I still think feeling is more important in heavy metal than technical proficiency, but as the years go by you want to develop, and of course still retain the feeling.”
Once again there are two songs sung in Swedish on the album. How do the Swedish songs of Helvetets Port go down with the audience? “It is always random how many songs in Swedish there will be on a release,” states Witchfinder, “as the song titles usually start from a gut feeling or whim. This time it happened to be a slightly lower number than before. The Swedish songs are usually popular, I’ve almost never heard anyone say they think it’s a pity they don’t understand the lyrics. Although I’m sure there are people who think so. And they are extra popular in Sweden of course. It doesn’t matter if I sing Swedish or English lyrics, they both have their pros and cons. Swedish has the advantage that the subject matter and titles have oftentimes never been presented in Swedish in a heavy metal context before, so all the words are unblemished by overuse.”
It’s now fifteen years since Helvetets Port’s debut album »Exodus To Hell« was released. What has been the highlight in their career so far? “When you say career, it makes me think of a moment of recognition of sorts,” the singer smirks, “but it’s hard to pinpoint. One very memorable moment was when we were the backing band for Thor on the first part of his 2018 show at Muskelrock in Sweden (I played bass and did backing vocals). We are all huge fans of Thor’s early to mid-80s output and we suggested we play the »Unchained« mini-LP from start to finish, and he accepted. My own story with that album is that I remember my uncle often walking around the house singing along to ‘Lightning Strikes Again’ when I was around 5 years old. I later got that album from him. My mom and I used to play a game where we said a random number, and I flipped that many LPs in the stand and played whichever corresponded to the number, and we were always the happiest when »Unchained« came on. To get to play those songs live with Thor was magical.”
MATTHIAS MADER