Hellbound!
With Hymns In The Key Of 666, Sweden's Hellsongs have put out the least-rockin' metal album of 2008: which is just how they like it. Andrew P Street investigates
Hellsongs offer plenty of miracles for the metal believer
Band founder Kalle Karlsson sounds quietly pleased when Time Out admits it's taken his Scando-lounge-metal trio to reveal the quality of the lyrics to Slayer's ‘Seasons In The Abyss'. "Then we have achieved our goals because that is the whole point about Hellsongs to show that the lyrics are often very good in metal. It is very important to us that it is not even a second of a joke," he emphasizes. "We are not ironic and we don't make fun out of metal: that would be totally unnecessary for us. We like these songs and especially we like the lyrics and it is a shame that you don't always recognize that."
Of course, given the band's somewhat jokey name and album title, one would imagine that some metal fans would be quite outraged about hearing their headbangin' classics like ‘Paranoid', ‘Run To The Hills' and ‘Rock The Night' transformed into gentle, lyrical ballads sung by a wispy female vocalist. "Yes, definitely! But they are in the minority," Karlsson insists. "We have gotten almost hate mail from very upset young people. I think they are between 15 or 20 and they have only started listening to metal in the past year or so. But I have never met an older person that is a metal head and is angry with us."
You see, Karlsson's motivations stem entirely from his genuine, passionate love of metal. "It was kind of simple because me, myself is more a metal fan and I started out when I was 14 or 15 playing electric guitar. I wanted to play all these cool heavy metal rock groups and when I got older I sort of lost touch with the metal and broadened my musical taste."
Somewhat surprisingly, the band weren't familiar with the similarly-named church until relatively recently. "When you Google ‘Hellsongs' it very often wants you to Google ‘Hillsong'," he chuckles. "I didn't know it was from Australia. We should come to Australia to confuse people."
It transpires that Karlsson's day job is working with young people about sexual health and safely issues, so he's particularly tickled by the comparison. "Are they a progressive church? Do they allow gay people? No? Ah. They won't have anything in common with us. But hasn't all of Australia seen Priscilla? Then the problem should be solved. Its 2008 and people have been gay since the birth of mankind!"
Hymns In The Key Of 666 is out now through Creative Vibes.