Swedish Heavy Metal has an excellent reputation, for over 25 years now, so when a new band emerges that tries to keep this spirit alive, I’m almost automatically interested, even though it obviously doesn’t always work. GALLOWS END is the name of the band, hailing from Arvika, and even though this is the first sign of life of them, greenhorns they are not. Originally founded as a one-man project by guitarist and singer Thord Klarström, he sums up the band’s influences as JUDAS PRIEST, ACCEPT and IRON MAIDEN as well as the likes of SINERGY and GAMMA RAY, sounds promising so far, no? Well, the whole thing has grown into a full-fledged band now, with only the position of bassist vacant at the time of me writing this, and I am happy to say that GALLOWS END definitely work!

Traditional Heavy Metal with nicely heavy riffing, a bit rougher (yet still clear, so more in the sense of powerful) vocals and good melodies and drive, carrying over the flag of the Eighties into the present, the music of the Swedes undoubtedly will strike many new kids as hopelessly outdated, but au contraire, while obviously heavily influenced by said decade, this does not sound like leftovers from 20, 25 years ago, but has the powerful production and oomph of the 21^st century without chumming up with any modern influences, so no surprise that young Farvahar label scooped them right up (together with Czech hopefuls EVAREST, btw)!

The band itself labels its sound as “Pure Fucking Heavy Metal” and there is not much I could add to that, because that’s exactly what it is, starting out with the up-tempo cracker “The Unborne Flag”, moving on to the mid-paced stomp of “Set The World In Flames”, just to finish things off in style with the super-catchy hymn “Queen Of The Damned”, which you won’t be able to get out of your head after the first listen already!

GALLOWS END have announced their full-length debut for the end of 2008/early 2009 and trust me, I will be waiting for this one to hit my CD player, because this is pure entertaining Heavy Metal!

(Online August 12, 2008)