Year Of Metal #100: Heavy Load - Full Speed At High Level

There have been some airtight metal bands and some sloppy muckabout boys on our journey thus far, but here we’re in what I can only describe as amateur hour. Heavy Load are another gang from Sweden who don’t seem to have made much of an impact (to fill space on their Wikipedia page, there are sentences about studio water damage in “the 2000s”, and a reference to the fraternal frontmen “considering releasing a new album, though that never occurred”).

The opening title track is remarkably sloppy stuff for an album that received a release on (presumably - I can’t figure it out) an actual record label. Whichever of the Wahlquist brothers is singing lead misses the third note on the whole LP. The riff is sub-barroom blues, just a couple of chords being stabbed at. I think there’s even a plinky plonky piano just crashing away on the same notes for the whole - rather exhausting - four minutes and change. It’s hard not to be at least a little charmed by all this carry on, especially when the record sleeve sees the band triumphantly rockin’ out in front of the gates of hell, but virtuoso stuff this is not. 

There’s worse to come. “Moonlight Spell” has one of the most rudimentary riffs I’ve ever heard, and the drums are laughably bad. The band sound like no one’s quite discussed what the swing’s going to be, so the guitars, vocals, and percussion often don’t line up. Ragne Wahlquist cuts a pretty solid solo, but this runs out of steam too, and he winds up stuck on the same pattern for longer than I’m sure he meant to. Then there’s a solid 20 seconds when everything cuts out except his guitar. He puts in a brave shift, but boy: this sounds terrible. You can picture him in the studio shooting terrified glances at the rest of the band, urging them to come back in (which, in fairness, they do with perfect syncro in due course). 

Even that pales in comparison to “Rock ‘N’ Roll Freak”. Firstly, something goes terribly wrong with the bass, which suddenly gurgles and clunks. The chorus is nothing short of a piss take. With the caveat that this is these dudes’ second language, you can’t be singing “I'm rocking steady / Roll me over / I'm rocking steady / Even when I'm older” with a straight face. When the title comes into play, it’s a yelp job for the singer. If a mid tier sketch show was doing a scene about a Swedish metal band, they’d come out with something like this. 

Here’s the strange thing, though: amid all these basic hard rock tracks are two sprawling, ambitious songs that are by miles the best cuts on the album. The 11 and a half minute long “Storm” trips itself up towards the end when it tries a few ideas too many, suddenly upping the pace and lurching into a drum solo to ill effect. Prior to this, though, it’s a moody bluesy tune with some of the heaviest drums and chewiest guitar lines on offer. “Caroline” is even better still. There’s nothing at all to suggest this band should be capable of epic, operatic rock, but they excel themselves here. It helps that the general off-kilterness of the band is much more suited to songs of slightly weird longing than to confident stomp rockers. Everything is elevated, and the extended instrumental sounds immense, emotive, strange but genuine.

It seems so bizarre that a band could be this bad at some of the most basic forms of music imaginable, but can pull off structurally and conceptually complex tracks with real aplomb, but there you are. This is for the most part quite a bad record, and yet the mercurial quality of the two big songs - which in fairness make up like 40% of the run time - means it’s a lot more interesting than a plain old crap hard rock album.