In the past five years, there has been a growing trend in the metal genre, of creating compilation albums to pay tribute to metal bands of the past. There have been tributes to everyone from Black Sabbath to Slayer to even Pantera. The newest collection of tribute material comes from Digital Dimension Records and features what would seem to be a fairly solid lineup of Swedish talent; In Flames, Entombed, The Crown, The Haunted and Meshuggah, to name a few. However, what looks good on paper, doesn’t necessarily convert well into the real world. The album, Power From The North : Sweden Rocks The World, features fifteen cover songs from Swedish rock and metal bands of the past. Great, you say, there should be covers of classic death metal material, perhaps some At The Gates or Grave or early Entombed. Alas, no, the bands covered on this compilation are not heavy, nor are they death metal, and for the most part, they’re not even remotely any good. The album features covers of Treat (In Flames), Agony (Lost Souls), Europe (Locomotive Breath), Stillborn (Entombed), Electric Boys (Lion’s Share), Glorious Bankrobbers (Transport League), two songs by Yngwie Malmsteen (Glory and Southpaw), Bathory (The Crown), Heavy Load (Hammerfall), Trash (Gooseflesh), John Norum (Treasure Land), Candlemass (The Haunted), November (The Quill) and Whimzy (Meshuggah). This album is extremely painful to listen to, as the majority of the songs covered are from the glam-era of 80s metal. The only bright spots on this album is Lost Soul’s powerful rendition of Agony’s "Deadly Legacy", which, while being a rather monotonous power metal track, is oddly catchy and for whatever reason has had me keeping the song on repeat. The other highlight would be The Crown’s balls-out cover of Bathory’s "Burnin Leather", which they turned into a death thrash chugger. The low lights are almost innumerable. In Flames covering 80s glam rock group Treat, Entombed’s hugely sad rendition of Stillborn’s "Albino Flogged In Black", which they turned into a near alternative version of a Type O Negative song, which any fan of early Entombed will find to be completely revolting, leaving you wonder how such a former great band could sink so low. Transport League’s cover of Glorious Bankrobbers which sounds like a poor imitation of Down, complete with plenty of harmonica Cajun flavoring. Glory’s pathetically weak cover of Malmsteen and Treasure Land’s wanky cover of John Norum. It’s safe to say this album was created solely for profit, and with the hope that people would simply buy this because it has ‘new’ covers by some of Sweden’s most popular acts. I will say this one last time; just because something was recorded by a Scandinavian band, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good. Only The Crown and Lost Souls play songs worth a shit. People will buy this album regardless of what I say, then again people are stupid, so what do I care? If you buy this, you’re much stupider than you look.

Written By: Teufel