The current incarnation of Greenleaf, pictured above, are getting ready to head out on a Fall tour co-headlining with Slomosa and supported by Magnetic Eye Records labelmates Psychlona. They just put out the new album The Head and the Habit (review here), which is a masterclass in hard-hitting, sans-bullshit heavy rock and blues.

The upcoming reissues of 2003’s Secret Alphabets (discussed here), 2007’s Agents of Ahriman (reissue review here) and 2012’s Nest of Vipers (review here) covers different lineups and the bulk of the Swedish band’s Small Stone Records era, which capped with 2014’s Trails and Passes (review here), at which point vocalist Arvid Hällagård took over for Oskar Cedermalm — also of Truckfighters — who had fronted them for the latter two of these three LPs, and Greenleaf set about changing from Tommi Holappa from Dozer‘s side-project and became a full-time, hard-touring band.

There were years I swore by Agents of Ahriman as the best thing Greenleaf ever did. Then Nest of Vipers came out and that narrative got more complicated. It has not become less so with the records they’ve done since, either, including The Head and the Habit. But if you don’t have these — and I’m not ignoring Secret Alphabets here either; their second LP is a landmark — and have gotten on board with the band in the years since, these are worth having both for contextual purposes in hearing the beginnings of the Greenleaf of today, who I have no qualms touting as one of the best heavy rock acts in Europe or anywhere else, and more importantly, just for hearing them because they’re great records.

They’ll be out around the time the tour with Slomosa and Psychlona starts. The PR wire has more:

Magnetic Eye is stoked to present exclusive new editions of three classic albums from our own almighty GREENLEAF!

Before they became a proper band, Greenleaf started as a loose collective of friends making 70s-inspired hard rock and proto-metal. Led by guitarist Tommi Holappa, co-founder of Euro desert rock originators Dozer, various configurations of Greenleaf included members of Lowrider, Truckfighters, Demon Cleaner, Dozer and more. And despite the rotating cast of players, they managed to release multiple albums of the highest caliber riff rock across the 14 years in their original unstructured form.

Now, in celebration of the Swedish heavyweights’ astonishing 25-year career and the stratospheric release of their latest LP ‘The Head & The Habit’ this year, Magnetic Eye Records brings forth brand new reissues of three of GREENLEAF’s iconic out-of-print classics, with new editions of ‘Secret Alphabets’, ‘Agents of Ahriman’ and ‘Nest of Vipers’ on sleek new colored vinyl and digisleeve CD. Coming this October and available just in time for their massive European tour with Slomosa and Psychlona!

See all the variants of these masterworks right here: http://lnk.spkr.media/greenleaf-reissues

GREENLEAF & SLOMOSA w/ PSYCHLONA
30 SEP 2024 Leipzig (DE) Werk2
01 OCT 2024 Berlin (DE) Lido
02 OCT 2024 (DE) Hamburg (DE) Gruenspan
03 OCT 2024 Köln (DE) Club Volta
04 OCT 2024 Bielefeld (DE) Forum
05 OCT 2024 Leeuwarden (NL) Into the Void
06 OCT 2024 Pratteln (CH) Up in Smoke
07 OCT 2024 Innsbruck (AT) PMK
09 OCT 2024 Wien (AT) Arena
10 OCT 2024 Zagreb (HR) Vintage Industrial Bar
11 OCT 2024 Graz (AT) PPC
12 OCT 2024 München (DE) Keep It Low

GREENLEAF is:
Arvid Hällagård – vocals
Tommi Holappa – guitars
Sebastian Olsson – drums
Hans Fröhlich – bass

www.facebook.com/greenleafrocks
https://www.instagram.com/greenleafband/
https://greenleaf-sweden.bandcamp.com/

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http://magneticeyerecords.com/
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Greenleaf, Secret Alphabets (2003)

Greenleaf, Agents of Ahriman (2007)

Greenleaf, Nest of Vipers (2012)

Like a lot of bands, the story of Greenleaf’s now decade-plus tenure (their self-titled debut EP came out on Molten Universe in 2000) is one of a rotating lineup, but more than that, it’s the story of a rotating lineup of players who’ve helped define their country’s heavy rock scene for that decade and longer. The remaining founding members of the band, Tommi Holappa (guitar) and Bengt Bäcke (bass), trace their roots back to Dozer, in which Holappa played guitar and whose first two albums Bäcke produced as part of a discography that also includes Demon Cleaner’s transformative 2000 long-player, The Freeflight. Bäcke engineered the first several Greenleaf albums as well: 2001’s Revolution Rock, 2003’s Secret Alphabets and 2007’s Agents of Ahriman – but on their newest offering, Nest of Vipers (Small Stone), Bäcke takes a back seat in that regard, and Karl Daniel Lidén, who played drums on everything up to Agents of Ahriman and whose VAKA project released its Kappa Delta Phi debut in 2008, has taken over engineering duties for the instruments and the mixing, leaving the vocals to be self-recorded by vocalist Oskar Cedermalm. Cedermalm, who also appeared on Agents of Ahriman, is full-time bassist/vocalist in Truckfighters, and laid his parts to tape at that band’s Studio Bombshelter, which anyone who’s yet seen the recent Truckfighters documentary (review here) is bound to recognize the name of.

Meanwhile, Dozer bassist Johan Rockner has signed on to this latest incarnation of Greenleaf, playing second guitar alongside Holappa, and Olle Mårthans, who drummed on Dozer’s 2008 apparent-swansong – I keep hoping they’re not really done – Beyond Colossal, has taken that position as well. It’s a complex (super-) grouping that ultimately results in the following Nest of Vipers lineup:

Oskar Cedermalm: vocals/vocal recording (Truckfighters)
Tommi Holappa: guitar (Dozer)
Johan Rockner: guitar (Dozer)
Bengt Bäcke: bass (engineer for Dozer, Demon Cleaner, etc.)
Olle Mårthans: drums (Dozer)

And though he doesn’t actually play anything this time around, Lidén makes his presence felt in the sound of the album, which in terms of the mix and the open-air feeling of the instruments has a lot in common with Dozer’s Beyond Colossal and – especially in Mårthans’ drums – Lidén’s own VAKA project. The inherent heaviness of those sounds is a big shift in itself from how Greenleaf presented their material on Agents of Ahriman – which I’m more than happy to go on record as saying was one of my favorite albums of the last decade – but ultimately serves the songs well, as they benefit from Mårthans’ bombast and the overall grittier feel. Factor in guest appearances from Dozer guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Nordin and noted organist Per Wiberg (ex-Opeth/Spiritual Beggars) on the extended closing title-track – Wiberg also shows up on third cut, “Lilith” – and former Lowrider singer Peder Bergstrand (currently of I are Droid) on the later “Sunken Ships,” and the personnel becomes even more noteworthy for Nest of Vipers. Nonetheless, the album keeps continuity five years later with Agents of Ahriman (on which Bergstrand also guested) in its classic rock modernization, ultra-Swedish vibing and masterful songcraft, offering nine engaging tracks that vary in mood and groove and remain nonetheless impeccably structured. Unspeakably catchy when they want to be, but able to turn mood on a dime and maintain the flow, the only shame about Greenleaf in 2012 is that it took so long for Nest of Vipers to manifest.

They have a good excuse in that regard, given the work Dozer, Truckfighters and VAKA have done since 2007, and Nest of Vipers is quick to shake off any rust that might have accrued since the last outing. Opener “Jack Staff” is the first of three four-minute stunners, and followed by “Case of Fidelity” and the first of Wiberg’s appearances on “Lilith,” Greenleaf builds an immediate momentum of straightforward and hooky rock. Cedermalm turns in a banner performance vocally, showing a depth of arrangement and layering that speaks to his thinking of the band as more than just a side-project, and as he tops Holappa and Rockner’s riffing with harmonized verses and choruses, Nest of Vipers establishes its melodic core. Underneath (or perhaps cutting through), Mårthans enacts the same kind of ferocity he brought to his snare work on Beyond Colossal, which Lidén, a drummer himself, excellently captures. His fills and tom runs on both “Jack Staff” and “Case of Fidelity” are a huge factor in the excitement the songs build, and Bäcke’s bass adds a rich and warm thickness to the more open verses of the latter while also standing up to the guitars for the bridge. With the addition of Wiberg’s Hammond to “Lilith,” the song earns its place as third in the line, feeling like the grander culmination of Nest of Vipers’ first three tracks before the longer “Tree of Life” slows the album’s progression down and changes to a more psychedelic atmosphere. Mårthans again excels on “Lilith,” and his drums are prominent in the mix but not overbearing, and it feels like the guitars have rightly taken a step back to account for Wiberg, but the solo in the song’s back half shines through all the same before a final verse and chorus thunder it to its finish.

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