Friday Full-Length: Greenleaf, Trails and Passes
I still think of this as a debut. Which is only funny because it was Greenleaf‘s fifth record. Also kind of a debut.
The final release of the Swedish outfit’s Small Stone Records era, the nine-song/42-minute Trails and Passes (review here) came out in May 2014, and it was a big change. For 14 years at that point, Greenleaf had existed as a side-project for Dozer guitarist Tommi Holappa, who, working with bassist/producer Bengt Bäcke, had previously worked with an assemblage of players more than a lineup. Peder Bergstrand from Lowrider and Dozer‘s Fredrik Nordin handled vocals early on, and Karl Daniel Lidén of Demon Cleaner handled drums on the first two records before Erik Bäckwall took over for 2007’s Agents of Ahriman (reissue review here) and then-Dozer‘s Olle Mårthans took over for 2012’s Nest of Vipers (review here).
Those last two records were also fronted by Oskar Cedermalm, best known as bassist/vocalist for Truckfighters from Örebro. Greenleaf was a side-project for him as well. But with the dissolution of Dozer after the release of 2008’s Beyond Colossal (featured here), suddenly Holappa didn’t have a ‘main’ project, and more and more, Greenleaf seemed to be filling that role. They did live shows, some touring, but it didn’t and couldn’t work with that lineup, fun daydream though it was.
So Holappa revamped the lineup, and even then, it felt like he was doing so with the express intent to tour, to make Greenleaf — we’re talking like 13 years after their first EP (discussed here) — a real band for the first time. Mårthans was out in favor of Sebastian Olsson (who would also eventually join Dozer) on drums, and Arvid Jonsson took over on vocals, bringing an immediately bluesy affect to “Our Mother Ash” and “Ocean Deep” at the start of Trails and Passes. Bäcke still handled engineering and bass but would soon enough leave the band for being unable to tour, and apart from an anniverary reissue of that aforementioned EP, they haven’t looked back.
But the thing that made it feel like such a beginning was the context of the progression of the prior incarnation of the band. Agents of Ahriman — which, on a personal level, I consider one of the best heavy rock records ever made — seemed to manifest the classic-heavy intent Greenleaf had always said were at their foundation. It was something distinct from Dozer in sound and purpose, but benefitted from the ever-ace songwriting of Holappa and an emotionality from Cedermalm‘s voice that at that point had only just begun to show through in Truckfighters and now is something of a given. And then Nest of Vipers followed and was more elaborate, with more complex arrangements, guest appearances (once a regular feature for Greenleaf LPs) and a marked breadth in the recording and mix by Lidén.
Trails and Passes, in making the trade to realize Greenleaf as an actual, sustainable working band, stripped a lot of that away. Not all of it, mind you, but the dug-in 
shuffle of “Equators” and the shove of the penultimate “Bound to be Machines” — powered, it should be noted, by Olsson‘s drumming and an energy that’s become a signature of Greenleaf since — stepped aside from the stately melody-craft of Nest of Vipers. The songs were alive, but in a different way. Pieces like “Depth of the Sun” and the eight-minute “With Eyes Wide Open” had space in their sound, but even this felt like the band going to ground, realigning, and the inevitable story of the album was the difference from what Greenleaf had been doing just two years earlier.
What listeners couldn’t have known at the time and I certainly didn’t, was that Trails and Passes would become the model Greenleaf would go on to follow for the next decade — which, it should also be noted, was the most productive decade of the band’s existence; 2014-2024. From Trails and Passes, Greenleaf would sign to Napalm Records and put out three albums, 2016’s Rise Above the Meadow (review here), 2018’s Hear the Rivers (review here) and 2021’s Echoes From a Mass (review here) — then shift to Magnetic Eye Records for 2024’s The Head and the Habit (review here), which remains their latest offering as of now. The patterns of riff and melody, the hooks and bluesy strut, Jonsson‘s growth into embracing the frontman role — all of these are documented across this 10-year span as Greenleaf went from being a side-project to one of the finest European heavy rock acts of their generation.
Listening to Trails and Passes now, it’s hard to separate it from that context, from the band Greenleaf have become, but this also only makes it feel more like a first album, and in hindsight, it’s an even bolder forward step for the band than it seemed at the time. Imagine doing a thing for the better part of a decade and a half and completely revamping the whole thing. But Greenleaf‘s ability to hold most of its lineup together — as noted, Bäcke stepped away after this album, and Dozer‘s Johan Rockner played bass on Rise Above the Meadow, but Hans Fröhlich joined ahead of Hear the Rivers and has been with the band since — with Holappa, Jonsson and Olsson has led to a continuity they’d never had in their earlier days, and though fans will argue in the way of fans, the tradeoff was more than worth it.
I guess I’ve got Greenleaf on the brain as the band will travel to the US for the first time this Fall, appearing at …In the Key of Doom in New York City and Ripplefest Texas in Austin (reverse order) with club shows between them (tour dates here), possibly with new material in tow as they move inexorably forward from The Head and the Habit. It’s one more milestone for them that probably would never have come to pass had Holappa not restructured the band 12-13 years ago, and the lesson to be learned is that sometimes it’s worth trusting the artist to know what needs to happen to make the art the way they want. It was a big risk and the rewards are still paying out. Listening now, Trails and Passes sounds classic sure enough, but as much for being a landmark itself for how it speaks to the history of heavy rock and roll.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Too hot this week. Not the first time or the last time. We’re in Connecticut at The Patient Mrs.’ mother’s place on the shoreline. Got here yesterday. I’m not sure proximity to water mitigates the heat or not; frankly it’s too hot to get up and measure. There were town fireworks last night for July 4 out over the beach down the way. A bunch of people came. It was a lot. The Pecan stayed up too late and was a mess. Blah blah blah same as ever.
More bullshit with the school, back and forth. Still haven’t heard from the hopeful new one. Exhausting. Consuming.
The Pecan watched a video about how heat makes human brains lose cognitive ability. Sitting here with the fans going, I believe it. I feel dumber.
I think The Pecan’s aunt and cousins are coming to swim later. They’re older; the cousin who’s her age (my wife’s brother’s son, turning 10, I think) we don’t see as often because they live in Baltimore. But she loves them, so it’s nice anyway. I don’t really like salt water on a sensory level, so I threw out yesterday that maybe while everyone was swimming I’d go record shopping. There’s a store a few exits south on I-95 that I like and that has a ‘Metal’ section. That’s usually enough to get me to peruse, and it’s been a while. Would be cool to pick up the Monolord CD, other odds and ends. I could use the time.
The meme I saw yesterday was “of course I don’t have Fourth of July plans, what am I a fucking republican?” and that was cute. As this country has abandoned even the previously-lip-serviced principles to which it once allegedly aspired, I find I’m even less inclined to be patriotic. War, capitalism, colonialism, genocide. The United States of America: it was a decent idea that never really panned out. Could’ve been a cool project until they decided to keep slavery.
Again, blah blah blah. No one gives a fuck. “Keep your politics outta my white privilege,” and so on.
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, I hope it’s air conditioned, even if that air conditioning contributes to global warming getting even worse than it already is. Sorry, but it’s really about maintenance by now, isn’t it? Haven’t we all collectively decided to run out the thread until we boil off the planet’s surface like the 97-percent water we are? Can they use that water for data centers? Stick around long enough and maybe we’ll find out.
Speaking of, I’m ready to go back in the Matrix, thanks. You know the ’90s was peak-humanity because Type O Negative put out October Rust.
Enough. Great and safe weekend. Fuck fascism harder than your grandparents thought fuck fascism.
FRM.
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Tags: Borlange, Greenleaf, Greenleaf Trails and Passes, Small Stone Records, Sweden, Trails and Passes
