Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Englund, Thobbe
Label: Metalville Records
Release: 2018
Runtime: 34:36
Rating: 2/5
Thobbe Englund, a Swedish multi-instrumentalist who used to play guitar in Sabaton and Winterlong and bass in Raubtier, has just put out his new studio album, “The Draining Of Vergelmer”. A solid dude, no doubt. An ambitious young guy. First and foremost a very good guitarist, for sure. And a multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer who also tries his hand at lead vocals on his solo work.
He’s back with his fourth studio album, the second since he left Sabaton in mid-2016. For this one, Thobbe invited three guest vocalists, old acquaintances and buddies who each have a recognizable vocal character, and you can hear it in the songs. Still, none of them, Thobbe included, leaves much of a mark. »The Draining Of Vergelmer« is an album that ventures into the realms of Norse myths and legends, and on the track Viking Thobbe deliberately kept Swedish verses, so as to bring the listener as effectively as possible into the true cult of the Viking. There’s a whole heap of soloing and eager embellishment of passages and guitar phrases on the album, and Thobbe is a master of the instrument. You can’t fault him there. He’s a textbook product of the Scandinavian school of electric guitar playing, where Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Kee Marcello (Europe) left their indelible mark long ago, along with a string of excellent Scandinavian guitarists who could be Thobbe’s uncles and fathers.
So this release falls flat, because it reheats the old soup of the power metal revival (in which Sabaton and Powerwolf are no better, those »worldly« types) from the second half of the nineties, and the production doesn’t hit the proper standards either, often sounding a bit sterile and thin. Like some power metal album of Finnish production released between 1995 and 1999. Dated, in other words. Partly thanks to the programmed drums, too. In this respect it’s quite respectable that Thobbe is such a committed and ambitious musician, who seems firmly focused on realizing his ideas, but along with that, a pile of naivety shows in his arranging. You can’t exactly pat yourself on the back when your cover of Malmsteen’s original, the track I’m A Viking, is in fact the best song on your own solo studio album. That’s one of the signs that this time, something just isn’t clicking the way it should. Even if you count the original Fingerspitzengefühl, which sounds like Primal Fear handed it off to Thobbe because they weren’t happy enough with it to put it on any of their own studio releases.
Anyway, if you’re a fiery power metal devotee whose “undecayed metal heart” nothing can crush, you’ll find plenty on this release to make you happy and satisfied. Otherwise, take a detour, because life is too short and there’s too much good metal out there to waste your time on releases like this. Thobbe needs some lessons from the school of production and more hanging out with older musicians, because just palling around with his peers from Raubtier, Sabaton and Bloodbound won’t open his eyes any time soon.
Line-up
Thobbe Englund – all instruments, vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Joakim Brodén (Sabaton) – vocals
Patrik J. Selleby (Bloodbound) – vocals
Hulkoff (Raubtier) – vocals
Production
Thobbe Englund
Track list
- Thou Ancient, Thou Free (1:31)
- Illuminati (4:11)
- Heart of Metal (0:39)
- Fingerspitzengefühl 3:37
- Viking (3:22)
- Odins Hall (4:41)
- The Land Where You Belong (4:25)
- I Am a Viking (5:03)
- Aim and Fire (2:55)
- The Ghost & The Darkness (3:33)
