Bombus is a traditional Scandinavian heavy metal band originating from Gothenburg, Sweden, who since their initial formation in 2008 have released two full-length studio records – the self-titled Bombus (2010) and its follow-up The Poet and the Parrot (2013). Now Bombus is back with their third album effort, entitled Repeat until Death.
The opening track on the album Repeat until Death is entitled “Eyes on the Price”, which doesn’t waste any time before getting right into maximum gear. The guitar work shared between the dual vocalists Feffe Berglund and Matte Saker is interesting, both in terms of lead and rhythm, with the occasional blast of bass from the recently joined Ola Henriksson making its place known on the song. As expected with Swedish metal, a lot of the classic British metal influences find their way into the music, specifically the guitar solo which owes a lot to vintage bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
Moving on from the record’s opening song, the track “Rust” continues the heavy pace with a brilliant introductory stomp in terms of its drum patterns, with the vocals of Berglund and Saker moving the whole thing from beginning to end along with their distorted guitar melodies. Next up on the album is the third song “Deadweight”, which brings more of a thrash element to the proceedings alongside with an exciting rhythmic bounce which propels the music right from the beginning. It’s refreshing to hear an album that delivers a trio of enjoyable songs, thus setting the record off to a very positive start.
“Head of Flies”, the fourth song on the album, begins with a noticeably different instrumental approach to what has come before it, but is still positive nonetheless. The vocal style on this song in particular is somewhat more aggressive in terms of the tone of the voice and the singing styles that are used, but they add to the song rather than detract from it. Some interesting chanting occurs about two-thirds of the way through, before the song blasts back into the usual heavy metal melody before rounding everything off to a close. The next two songs on the album, namely “I Call You Over (Hairy Teeth, Pt)” and the album’s title track “Repeat until Death”, are both interesting pieces of material, with the former of the pair beginning with a surprising piano introduction before getting right into the thick of it, while the latter track relies on the usual vocals, guitar and drum set-up more than anything else.
Moving on to the final section of the album, the track “Shake Them for What They’re Worth” stomps along with a fairly consistent rhythmic pattern which only increases or decreases in speed at particular points throughout the song, but regardless the vocal talents of Berglund and Saker are on display here more than most of the tracks on the record. The penultimate song is entitled “You the Man”, is a track which clearly borrows elements from thrash metal groups to compliment the hard rock vocalism on display throughout the track. The guitars sound particularly crisp and well-produced, which drive the song from beginning to end along with the drums.
The song that rounds the album off is the song “Get Your Cuts”, which opens with a simplistic drum pattern before the vocals and guitar kick in to the song. Rhythmically the song is an appropriate end to the record in that it doesn’t try anything particularly fancy or technical in terms of its rhythm or instrumentation, which is a welcomed decision. Like “Shake Them for What They’re Worth”, the track in question bounces and stomps constantly as the drummer moves from one part of the song to the next before tidying everything up with a nice clean cymbal fill to round out the track and the overall album.
All in all, this album is for fans of Sabaton, Amon Amarth, Trivium and Killswitch Engage, so if you enjoy those bands be sure to check this record out.