After a quarter-century of melodic death metal, maintaining momentum can be a tricky business. Faced with label pressure, lucrative touring opportunities or plain old glory-hunting, bands are increasingly forced to choose: change it up, or hang it up. In the vast majority of cases these changes are as predictable as the tides: write catchy, derivative singles, squash the guitars, and, for the love of God, cut out the screaming. The most egregious example of this trend is We Rule the Night by once-respected Swedes, Sonic Syndicate. Trigger warning: garbage. With this, their tenth release, genre pioneers Soilwork have once again resisted temptation and proven that cheap studio tricks and junk-food songwriting are no substitute for hard work.

That isn’t to say, though, that The Ride Majestic isn’t poppy. In fact, vocalist Björn “Speed” Strid manages to jam an earworm into just about every one of these eleven tracks, from Enemies in Fidelity’s ephemeral chorus to the melodic ceasefire bunkered between machine-gun blastbeats in The Phantom. The reason it works so well here is because it never feels shoehorned in; Strid is wonderfully even-handed in how he doles out demonic screams and squeaky-clean cleans.

Soilwork’s trademark one-two punch of delicate thrash and walloping syncopation is still very much in check, but relative newcomers David Andersson and Sylvain Coudret take a unique approach to every cut. Some, such as Petrichor by Sulfur, rely on breakneck cascading arpeggios while Whirl of Pain takes a simple melody and fits it out with huge, stomping power chords. Adding another layer of sophistication to proceedings, drummer Dirk Verbeuren goes far beyond the indistinct pummelling strictly required of him. Things are kept interesting for himself and us by having The Ride Majestic swing, sway and seize up just as often as it flat-out rocks.

If this bloodthirsty collection is anything to go by, Helsingborg’s finest are only getting finer. Heavy metal alchemy, apparently, is change without compromise.

My 321:

3. Whirl of Pain

2. Death in General

1. The Ride Majestic