Unleashed reveal 'revolting' secret to their longevity

Swedish death metal veterans Unleashed put their longevity down to their long-standing desire to be as “revolting” as possible.

The band this month released 12th album Dawn Of The Nine and have enjoyed a long career free of fall-outs and excessive lineup changes.

Fouding bassist/singer Johnny Hedlund tells Metal Hammer: “For the reason we keep on going, you have to go back to day one. We formed the band as a way of life. We were metalheads who wanted to take metal music to a more harsh level and be a little bit more revolting.

“And also we wanted to put the Viking traditions into death metal – we saw it in heavy metal, we saw it in black metal, but there was nobody doing it with death metal. I think all of that is something that we still agree on.”

Dawn Of The Nine is a concept album closely linked to its predecessor, 2012’s Odalheim. Hedlund adds: “We started the concept on the previous album because of the storyline of the book that I’ve been writing for some years now, set in the world of Odalheim. The previous album and this album are connected in that way, because the storyline is continuing from song to song.”

Read the full interview with Unleashed in the new issue of Metal Hammer magazine, out now.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.