(written by Islander)
We are now about to present a song that’s furious and frightening, a beastly manifestation whose formidable sonic and emotional powers are compulsive at a visceral level.
This song, “He Keeps Forgetting“, is the first to be revealed from a new album named Entangled by the Swedish band Since The Death, which existed as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Oscar Rask since beginning in 2016 (joined by various guest musicians on different releases) but has now expanded in a way that will bring Since The Death on stage for the first time this year.
Entangled also marks the band’s first record on the Norwegian label Nordic Mission Records, which has set Entangled for release on April 24th. As the label describes, “Musically, Since The Death operate at a fierce intersection of death metal, thrash, and black metal, fusing aggression with precision and atmosphere while maintaining a careful balance between cohesion and contrast.”
As hinted above, it’s easy to think of the song you’re about to hear as a wild musical beast, one undergoing dangerous mood swings with frightening but exhilarating results. It’s a large, heavily muscled creature with such a strong pulse that you can feel its throb from what might seem like a safe distance (but isn’t safe at all). It rages and roars with ravenous and throat-slashing intensity. It menacingly stalks without fear but also explodes in episodes of ravaging madness.
These thoughts are spawned in part by the music’s very punchy rhythmic grooves, carved by drumwork that cracks necks, heavily rumbles, and shifts into vigorous gallops, accompanied by gut-loosening bass lines — although the rhythm section also quickly throw listeners off-balance with a lurching cadence past the song’s mid-point (you’ll know it when that happens). The riffing often generates its own fearsome (and sometimes dismal) pulse, and the fretwork also elevates in even more feverish bursts.
The aura of great menace flows out from dense, swarming and scarring riffs that sound cruel and cold, and madness blooms when the riffing boils, and when a spitfire guitar solo frantically swirls and soars — leading the song into a riotously violent finale, in which the vocals explode into screams.
By way of further introduction to the album, we’ll share these additional details from Nordic Mission:
Originally conceived under the longer working title Entangled But Still Guarded, the album ultimately embraced the stark power of a single word. Entangled operates simultaneously as theme and symbol.. The artwork depicts a man bound to a massive tree, wrapped in a spider-like cocoon, seemingly trapped with no escape, an image that captures the album’s underlying tension between confinement and protection.
Lyrically rooted in Oscar Rask’s Christian faith, Entangled explores struggle, endurance, and hope through a darker, more confrontational lens.
The result is a record shaped by tension, belief, and perseverance, an album that faces darkness head-on without ever surrendering to it.
Nordic Mission will release Entangled on CD and digital formats. For more info, and to pre-order, visit the locations linked below.
https://nordicmission.bandcamp.com/album/entangled
https://www.facebook.com/sincethedeath
https://sincethedeath.bandcamp.com