Interviews

 

SCAR SYMMETRY

 

Soilwork, In Flames and Arch Enemy fans, your new favourite Swedish metal band has arrived. SCAR SYMMETRY drummer Henrik Ohlsson talks to ROD YATES.

Scar Symmetry drummer Henrik Ohlsson was eight when he first heard Kiss. It was, he says, a near-life changing event that left him open-mouthed, staring at his tape player.

 

“I thought, ‘How can anything be so cool?’” he laughs from his home in Sweden. “The same thing happened when I heard Altars Of Madness by Morbid Angel in 1990. I just looked at my record player and I thought the same thing: ‘How can anything be this cool?’”

 

Mention to Ohlsson that metalheads around the world may well be asking themselves the same question as they listen to Scar Symmetry’s second album, the just-released Pitch Black Progress, and it takes him slightly aback. Fact is, though, that the quintet’s mix of death and melodic metal, while perhaps not groundbreaking, is nevertheless on a par with the recent output of countrymen Soilwork and In Flames, acts whose international success has inspired Ohlsson and his bandmates to attempt a similar breakthrough since forming in 2004.

 

“We really got inspired by seeing those guys do their thing, that just triggered us, I guess,” nods the drummer.

 

There was, however, more to Scar Symmetry’s formation than a mere desire to ape the success of their idols. Back in 2004, ex-Carnal Forge guitarist Jonas Kjellgren was looking for something of a direction change. Having spent the past few years mining a brutal line of ’80s-inspired thrash with that band, the guitarist wanted to delve into slightly more melodic pastures. Conveniently, Ohlsson’s band at the time, Altered Aeon, happened to be recording at Kjellgren’s studio. Impressed with the skinsman’s lightning quick abilities, he approached him about starting a new band, explaining his vision simply as “melodic death metal”. The drummer was sold, and together they started recruiting bandmates. Though all were veterans of the Swedish metal scene, none had enjoyed anywhere near the kind of international exposure Kjellgren’s old act had garnered. Indeed with the exception of Kjellgren, the band’s recent jaunt on the Neckbreaker’s Ball tour earlier this year – alongside Soilwork, Amorphis and Hypocrisy – was each member’s first real taste of touring.

 

“I had my doubts before the tour,” explains Ohlsson. “Dealing with 10 metal guys on one bus didn’t sound like paradise! But I really enjoyed it. We drank a lot of booze, played a lot of PlayStation and watched a lot of DVDs!”

 

Should Pitch Black Progress achieve the kind of recognition it deserves, Ohlsson may have no option but to ditch his job in the steel industry and get even more familiar with the inside of a tourbus over the coming months. Boasting a style of riffing and technicality not a million miles away from Soilwork and Strapping Young Lad, it’s the perfect canvas for guitarist Per Nilsson’s blistering leads and vocalist Christian Alvestom’s guttural belch and soaring, powerful, Devin Townsend-esque vocal capabilities. Top it off with huge swathes of keyboard laden melody, and you have Pitch Black Progress, one of 2006’s finer metal releases so far. As is becoming commonplace, there’s a concept to the album, as Ohlsson – the band’s lyric writer – explains.

 

“There’s a theme for five songs on the album, and it revolves around a small number of world leaders that just manipulate the population of the world to obey their agenda without them knowing about it. They use subliminal messages and also microchip implants so they can monitor what people think and what they intend to do. And the population gets punished if they don’t obey.”
Remarkably, both the album’s music and concept were written mere weeks before the band entered the studio, and much of it by swapping tapes through the mail, a byproduct of the members living in different areas of Sweden.

 

“We don’t do anything until there’s just a couple of weeks left before we’re supposed to record,” chuckles the drummer. “We only rehearse right before shows and write a few weeks before recordings, and it works extremely well for us.”
Would you like one day to be in the situation where you can dedicate all your time to the band?

 

“That would be cool, but you have to earn a lot of money to live from it,” Ohlsson explains. “But we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

 

 

[BACK TO INTERVIEWS]