''Sworn to a Great Divide'' is the seventh studio album by Swedish

melodic death metal Melodic death metal (also referred to as melodeath) is a subgenre of death metal that employs highly melodic guitar riffs, often borrowing from traditional heavy metal (including New Wave of British Heavy Metal). The genre features the heavine ...

band

Soilwork Soilwork is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Helsingborg. They are signed to Nuclear Blast. Formed in late 1995 by Björn Strid and Peter Wichers, originally under the name ''Inferior Breed'', the band changed their name in late 1996 to ...

. The album was released on 19 October 2007 for Europe and on 23 October 2007 for the US, both through

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label move ...

. Everything aside from vocals was recorded at Not Quite Studios in

Helsingborg Helsingborg (, , , ) is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania (Skåne), Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Scania (after Malmö) and ninth-largest in Sweden, with a population of 113,816 (2020). Helsingborg is the cent ...

. This is the only album to include

Daniel Antonsson Daniel Antonsson is a musician and songwriter from Gothenburg, Sweden, formerly playing guitar in Dimension Zero. He is also the former bassist for Dark Tranquillity, playing on the album '' We Are the Void'', and former guitarist for Soilwork, re ...

on guitar who replaced founding member Peter Wichers after his late 2005 departure. It is also the last album to feature long-time guitarist Ola Frenning who left Soilwork in February 2008. ''Sworn to a Great Divide'' was Soilwork's biggest commercial success at the time of its release, selling approximately 5,000 copies in its first week in the U.S., charting at No. 148, and reaching No. 2 on the

Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

. The album in its entirety was put on Soilwork's MySpace on 10 October 2007. Due to other commitments,

Devin Townsend Devin Garrett Townsend (born May 5, 1972) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007. He has also ...

only produced the vocal tracks. The remaining production duties were in the hands of Ola Frenning and

Peter Wildoer Karl Peter Wildoer is a Swedish musician who is the drummer for Darkane, Electrocution 250 and Grimmark. He has also drummed for the bands Armageddon, Majestic, Pestilence, Silver Seraph, Arch Enemy, Time Requiem, Soilwork, Gardens of Obscurit ...

. While speculation led many fans to believe this would be a sequel to the intense ''

Natural Born Chaos ''Natural Born Chaos'' is the fourth full-length studio album released by the Swedish melodic death metal band Soilwork. According to Nielsen Soundscan, the album sold 2.267 copies in the US as of 2002. The album comes in a limited vinyl version ...

'', ''Sworn to a Great Divide'' instead continued the band's more commercial progression, further deviating from the bands melodic death metal roots.

Promotion

"Exile" would become the album's single released on 3 October 2007. A

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devic ...

was made for the song and shot in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

. The song was also made available to download for use in ''

Guitar Hero II ''Guitar Hero II'' is a music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 and Activision for the Xbox 360. It is the second main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series and is the sequel to 2005 ...

'' on

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

on 15 October 2007. The album's title track would also find significant airplay on heavy metal

satellite radio Satellite radio is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s ITU Radio Regulations (RR) as a '' broadcasting-satellite service''. The satellite's signals are broadcast nationwide, across a much wider geographical area than t ...

following its release.

Reception

''Sworn to a Great Divide'' has been treated to largely positive reviews.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

's Thom Jurek noted that despite upset expectations of a stylistic sequel to ''Natural Born Chaos'', the album has "absolutely nothing to complain about." Jurek praised vocalist

Björn Strid Björn Ove Ingemar "Speed" Strid (born 10 September 1978) is a Swedish vocalist who has worked with bands such as Allegaeon, Disarmonia Mundi, Terror 2000, Coldseed, The Night Flight Orchestra, Act of Denial, Gizmachi, and most notably Soi ...

as well as the album's layered and melodic style. He concluded by calling it "well done, carefully executed, and aggressive enough to satisfy fans, while offering some new textures, spaces, and compositional elements to add depth and dimension to an ever-evolving sound." The album received perhaps a more extreme review from ''

Stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision ...

'' which considers Soilwork's style a heavier incarnation of

Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lamp Richard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colomb ...

and modern

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

groups. It also speculates the song title "20 More Miles" as a possible "marketing move." Yet, in the same hand, the review considers Soilwork to "sound slightly 'more metal' than before." ''Sworn to a Great Divide'' is also praised for its catchy hooks, guitar harmonies, and Strid's outstanding singing abilities. It ends by stating, "That this falls under metal, as does

Slayer Slayer was an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California. The band was formed in 1981 by guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, drummer Dave Lombardo and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya. Slayer's fast and aggressive musical styl ...

and Sunn O))), is a credit to the music's breadth and resiliency."

Track listing

Release history

Chart positions

Personnel

Soilwork *

Björn "Speed" Strid Bjorn (English, Dutch), Björn (Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, and German), Bjørn (Danish, Faroese and Norwegian), Beorn (Old English) or, rarely, Bjôrn, Biorn, or Latinized Biornus, Brum (Portuguese), is a Scandinavian male given name, or less oft ...

−

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

* Sven Karlsson − keyboards, sampling *

−

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

* Ola Frenning −

Dirk Verbeuren Dirk Verbeuren (born 8 January 1975) is a Belgian musician and the current drummer of American thrash metal band Megadeth, amongst other projects. He previously was a member of the Swedish melodic death metal band Soilwork. Verbeuren recorded ...

−

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

* Ola Flink −

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

;Guest *

Per Aldeheim Per Henrik Aldeheim (born 17 January 1966), is a Swedish guitarist, songwriter and producer.arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orche ...

s on "Light Discovers Darkness"

References

{{Authority control Soilwork albums 2007 albums Nuclear Blast albums