Back in December, Swedish heavy rock mainstays Greenleaf wrapped up a European tour alongside New Jersey exports The Atomic Bitchwax and London desert anthropologists Steak that would seem to have been the final installment of their Euro touring cycle for 2016’s triumphant Rise Above the Meadow (review here) on Napalm. That album, their sixth overall and first for Napalm Records, was an unmistakable forward step from 2014’s preceding Trails and Passes (review here), which introduced the next phase of the band as founding guitarist/songwriter/spearhead Tommi Holappa (see also: Dozer) brought in vocalist Arvid Jonsson and seemed to be a moment whereby the group got its collective feet under them as a result of that shift.

In March, Greenleaf — Holappa, Jonsson, drummer Sebastian Olsson and bassist Hans Fröhlich — will head to Australia for the first time in their almost-20-year history, but before they go, the band has revealed that they’ve begun work on their seventh studio album, tentatively-titled Hear the Rivers, with longtime producer (and former drummer) Karl Daniel Lidén for a release through Napalm later this year. Over the course of Greenleaf‘s history, each record has built off its predecessor in one way or another, and I’d expect no less from Hear the Rivers, the making of which Jonsson is documenting in a series of vlog updates, because it’s the future and apparently that’s how we do things now. Wish I knew that earlier. Probably could’ve saved me a lot of time typing. Alas.

One more to look forward to as we move deeper into this still-relatively-New-Year. With Holappa‘s long-established approach at its core, Greenleaf‘s songwriting tack is essentially flawless, and if they can capture a fraction of the energy they brought to Rise Above the Meadow — mind you, there’s zero reason to think they won’t given all the momentum they’ve built on tour since that record came out — Hear the Rivers has the potential to stand among 2018’s finest offerings. Can’t wait to hear it.

Find Greenleaf‘s Aussie dates and one of Jonsson‘s studio vlogs below. They’ve been appearing regularly on Greenleaf‘s Thee Facebooks page, if you’d like to keep up.

Greenleaf Australia tour:
03/02 The Bendigo Hotel Collingwood
03/03 Singing Bird Studios Frankston
03/04 Barwon Club Geelong
03/06 Rad Bar Wollongong
03/08 The Chippo Sydney
03/09 Crowbar Brisbane
03/10 Jive Adelaide

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Tags: Borlange, Greenleaf, Greenleaf Hear the Rivers, Hear the Rivers, Napalm Records, Sweden

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2018 at 4:47 am and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.