After the success of the hugely acclaimed The Chainheart Machine, Listenable records re-released Sweden’s Soilwork’s debut, Steelbath Suicide. Although not nearly as refined as the next few releases from the band, the album serves as a looking glass into Soilwork’s roots and does manage to pack a mean melodic death metal punch.

Soilwork goes heavier than they had even in The Chainheart Machine with several stellar headbangers found on the album. Wings of Domain is particularly dark and heavy, with unique dissonant guitar harmonies, and an unrelenting, pounding drum beat. The title track has all of the necessary features of a perfect melodic death metal song. It’s catchy and fast, with a heavy chorus. The verse drumming in this song is particularly striking and interesting. It features an insane double bass beat with two ride cymbals, akin to the beat found in Darkane’s Third. Centro De Predominio is a super heavy instrumental, similar to something from Arch Enemy’s Wages of Sin album.

The Groundwork for later albums by the band is laid out within several of the songs. My need has many slower, modern heavy metal-influenced parts similar to The Flameout from Natural Born Chaos. It also has a slower, more melodic solo much in the same vein as the solos from recent songs like Rejection Role, and As We Speak. The Aardvark Trail is the most similar song on the album to the band’s latter releases, with highly audible keyboards and, save for the vocals, is much more melodically driven than any other on Steelbath Suicide. Soilwork alter their core sound in many directions throughout the album. The intro to In a Close Encounter is very hardcore sounding and, like The Aardvark Trail it’s keyboard-driven at points. Although the fine drum work of Henry Ranta is absent on Steelbath Suicide, Jimmy Persson manages to show off quite an amazing amount of ability in songs like Steelbath Suicide and In a Close Encounter. Also missed is Guitarist Ola Frenning. His predecessor, Ludvig Svartz has a very keen melodic sense and writes quite a good guitar solo. Much like the next album, the keyboards are mixed incredibly low. This puts them in more of a subconscious role, adding extra layers of melody whenever they briefly appear in the mix.

Most reissued debuts are plagued with production errors, poor recording quality, and rushed performances. Steelbath Suicide sounds very accurate and spotless performances by each member. Fredrik Nordström impeccably produces the album. Every single track is not only audible, but also crystal clear and the guitar and drum assault Nordström has become famous for is as huge as ever. Obviously this album was slaved over despite its most likely low production budget. Also included on this reissue is a bonus live track: Sadistic Lullaby. This version of the song is much faster than the studio recording and showed exactly what Soilwork were about at that point in their career: mind blowing speed. Unfortunately, this live track is possibly the only way to hear a song from the album played live today.

Steelbath Suicide is a remarkably good debut from a band that has continued to consistently evolve with each album. Fans of newer Soilwork should take note of where this band has come from. Anyone who enjoyed The Chainheart Machine, but have been disappointed by the band’s recent work should find solace in Steelbath Suicide’s unrelenting speed and classic heaviness.