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SYMPHONY OF SWEDEN – “The Grim Reaper” is out now!

Symphony Of Sweden released a new song on the 2nd of July from their upcoming album, and with „The Grim Reaper” they are taking it to the next level.

Lee’sstatement: „I wanted to tell a story about one thing we all will face. The one thing we can’t run from. The thing that is for sure. But I wanted to make death more into a living thing, that he is always around the corner. He is always listening and he knows exactly what you do.
I see him as the man that follows you through life. Knows your mistakes and secrets. Sometimes he comes way too early, but that’s the story for that person. Some lucky people that lived a long and happy life may see him as an old – I’m not gonna say friend, but as a person, you gonna meet at some point, and when it’s time, they will greet him.
And I like to think that. He knows that sometimes he comes too early for some people, and he doesn’t want to do his job. But that’s just it. It’s his job, he is The Grim Reaper.
The message for the listeners is to try to look at death in a different way.”

Evan’s statement: „The Grim Reaper is a track that was initially built from drum sessions we recorded back in January with Erik. Those sessions were actually for a couple of other songs but I thought it would be nice to record some more drums for upcoming songs as well. So I gave Erik some reference tracks to play along with and I believe the drums for The Grim Reaper are inspired by a Disturbed track.
I recorded the drums, edited and arranged them in a way that would fit Symphony Of Sweden, and then sent the drums as a stereo file to Jim for adding some cool guitar riffs, which he did really fast and great.
He sent the guitar files back to me and I added some keyboards but still, it was a pretty massive guitar-based track. I sent the rough mix over to Lee, who made the lyrics and top-line (melody). We recorded the vocals a couple of months later, and then I started the fun work to re-arrange and polish the track to sound ”as a record”. During the vocal recordings, I had a feeling that Lee was not totally satisfied with the arrangement, so I re-arranged the track, removing the guitars and drums completely from the verses, and added my own secret weapon to there: a Yamaha Electric Grand from the late ’70s. I also got a vision to add some fanfare-like keyboards to the choruses, and I guess they are a bit inspired by the Rainbow track, Stargazer!
With the softer verses, powerful bridge and choruses, and the killer middle 8, the overall feeling of The Grim Reaper is epic! We hope new and old fans will love the track as much as we do!”

The band had an extra surprise for their fans because they released an extra song along with The Grim Reaper, called Bailey. “Bailey was one of the first songs we recorded for our new album” – Evan said. “An epic track, almost a ballad, about a guy joining the army. The outro part – which will be just wonderful to perform live – could be repeated over and over again, and having a huge crowd singing it for us would be a dream coming true! You will understand what I mean when you hear it!
As it is still a no-go to perform live, it’s a perfect time to release new songs instead. We don’t want to rush with a full album even though we have come a long way, but these two tracks were among the first ones we recorded for it. The Grim Reaper is also a good teaser of our slightly harder sound for our upcoming album, even though we will never forget our symphonic legacy as well.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/7TSZJiqQTq0
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3AeEmOO

About the band

Welcome to the musical world of Symphony Of Sweden!

Coming from the North of Sweden with winter and ice bears all over the place, the music is the other way around. Grand and epic with huge arrangements, the missing link between pop and metal – this is Symphony of Sweden! Add the powerful voice of Linus “Lee” Wester and the creative talent of Pontus “Evan” Hagberg you will have a concept that brings you on a journey from here to eternity.

Symphony Of Sweden is:
Pontus „Evan” Hagberg
Linus „Lee” Wester

Evan and Lee lived in the same small town up north in Sweden. Lee had his own little service point, betting shop, tobacco store nearby which also happened to be Evan’s local service point where he went to get his parcels. After saying hello to each other for a couple of years, there was one day Evan had a parcel to get – which obviously was music-related. They fell into conversation with each other, a few days later Evan invited Lee to his studio. Evan: „he had found one of my instrumental tracks on Youtube and sang it with a new melody on top and lyrics for me in the studio, right there when he just arrived! I was blown away, and a week later we had our first ever track produced and completed. As soon he sang his first two words in the studio I wanted to work with him!”

The band released their first album, Inner Demons in January 2021. But they didn’t stop: Symphony of Sweden is already working on their new album, which will be released in the first half of 2022. „At the moment as we are not allowed to play live, we have plenty of time to work on new songs and for many of the new tracks, we are working with a great super talented metal guitarist to add more power and metal to the sound!
We are also working more closely with our drummer on the new tracks. From a technical view, we have invested in a lot of analog gear and trying to stay away from using plugins which are sounding way worse than their real analog counterpart when speaking of EQ and dynamics. We are trying to make the best album ever released both sound-wise and music-wise! If we then end up with the second or third best album ever, we should be proud anyway” 
– Evan added with a smile.

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