Soilwork
The Swedish metal sextet Soilwork formed in early 1997, fusing the country's signature ultra-heavy death metal sound with the power-groove riffs of late-'70s, early-'80s British and European metal. Vocalist Bjorn "Speed" Strid, guitarists Peter Wiches and Ola Frenning, and drummer Henry Ranta were all veterans of the Swedish scene by the time they recorded their first demo, In Dreams We Fall into the Eternal, in 1997; bassist Ola Flink became a permanent member afterward, as did keyboardist Carlos Del Olmo Holmberg. Their official debut album, Steelbath Suicide, was released in 1998 and wound up landing Soilwork a U.S. deal with Century Media. The follow-up, The Chainheart Machine, appeared in 2000. Predator's Portrait followed a year later. The band kept up the momentum yearly with Natural Born Chaos in 2002, Figure Number Five in 2003, the Early Chapters EP in 2004, Stabbing the Drama in 2005, and the Sworn to a Great Divide CD/DVD in 2007.