SWEDEN: STILL LIVING IN ITS OWN SHADOW

Swedish reader Tom Lindén (who has made some cool artwork, which you can check out here) e-mailed us to recommend that we check out Yersinia, who he described as “a quite unknown Swedish band” that are “beyond awesome and definitely my favorite upcoming Swedish band.”

Now, it’s no secret that I’ve felt pretty let down by Sweden as of late. I mean, some of the already-established bands are still doing cool stuff, but I haven’t heard a new Swedish band I’ve enjoyed in what seems like forever. Why, just this morning, I was reading about this melodeath band from Gothenburg (They have melodeath bands in Gothenburg?!?!) called Deals Death on No Clean Singing, and since I like NCS, I was  really optimistic that they had found something to restore my faith in that once-great metallic nation. But, no, Deals Death is just another re-Swede band — basically Omnium Gatherum with a singer who looks like he belongs in Manowar. Just what the world needed.

So since Tom actually is actually from Sweden, I got really excited when he told us to check out Yersinia. I thought maybe he had the skinny on some awesome new band that was going to restore my faith in the land that bred Entombed, Opeth, At the Gates, Meshuggah, In Flames, Amon Amarth, Soilwork, Dark Tranquillity, The Haunted, Katatonia, Marduk, Dissection, Arch Enemy, Coroner, and Laethora.

Alas, this is not the case. Yersinia are not really good at anything, other than getting kids to run around in a field.

At least I recognize what Deals Death play as something influenced by something I might listen to. I get the feeling that Yersinia wanna be a metallic hardcore band, but they botch (no pun intended) both parts of the formula pretty badly to make bland, unmemorable music.

And so my search for a new boner-riffic band from Sweden continues. Is the country just condemned to some kind of creative dark age right now? Maybe

-AR