Metal Centre

UNLEASHED is credited as one of the inventors of the Swedish death metal sound. Along with DISMEMBER, ENTOMBED and GRAVE, UNLEASHED was part of the first generation of death metal bands from Stockholm, Sweden. Although UNLEASHED shares characteristics with the other three, they definitely have a separate, musical personality.

UNLEASHED was one of, if not the first death metal band to incorporate Viking themes into their lyrics. At the helm sounding the arrival of Ragnarok is Johnny Hedlund. Hedlund projects his voice at a higher pitch than the other above-mentioned bands, and lets loose with an unmistakable, ferocious scream to punctuate key words. Also, UNLEASHED structures their songs in an old school heavy metal manner, a technique lost among many extremes acts of today.

Before UNLEASHED, Hedlund pounded out rhythms on his bass for NIHILIST. Hedlund split with NIHILIST to form UNLEASHED, while the rest of the members formed ENTOMBED. After a series of demos and the “And the Laughter Has Died…” EP, UNLEASHED released their first full-length album, “Where No Life Dwells.” The said album is still one of the all-time classic death metal albums. The next two albums, “Shadows in the Deep” and “Across the Open Sea” continued the same sanguinary themes, catchy riffing, roaring vocals and fist-pumping anthems. “Victory” and “Warrior” were a dark period in the band, showing little of the inspiration of the first three albums.

“Hell’s Unleashed,” their next release, contained a title that indicated a triumphant return to form. “Sworn Allegiance” and “Midvinterblot” showed the group once again following the voice of Odin, using the full force of Mjollner to hammer away all naysayers. “Hammer Battalion” is the next audio battle to confront the global legions of metal warriors in early June. Bassist and war general, Johnny Hedlund spoke with Metal Centre about this tremendous release.