The retro-rocking Swedes return with a “contemplative” new album with isolation-themed lyrics.
Swedish hard rockers Graveyard have been part of the retro-rock revival since 2006 with their potent mix of heavy blues, 70s swagger and gritty rock’n’roll.
After a brief split in 2017, they re-formed after just a few months and in 2018 released Peace. Now, five years on, they’re back with their new, sixth album, appropriately titled 6, a dynamic, bluesy trip that’s rich in introspection.
It’s five years since your last album. What’s been going on in Graveyard’s world in that time?
The first two of those five years we were touring. The last tour we did [before covid] was with Clutch in Europe, and then we did a tour in the US with Opeth. The plan all along was to start recording and writing songs after that tour, but we weren’t able to just focus on writing music. It took a little longer than we were hoping.
Did covid delay everything?
I guess. I mean, everyone got covid at different points during the period, so we had to wait that out. But not really, except that we couldn’t play and make money. We didn’t have any lockdowns here in Sweden, so we were kind of free to do what we wanted.
The new album was recorded in two studios, one being Silence studio which is in a tiny rural village in one of the darkest parts of Sweden. What made you decide to do that?
We started out by going away to the forests in Sweden to Silence studio for about a week. The original Silence studio was also a record company that released a lot of Swedish prog albums back in the day. I think going there was about focus – being away from normal life, where we could just focus on writing. But it wasn’t possible to do that for a long period, with family stuff and things back home. So the rest of the album we did in our producer’s studio.
What inspired 6 lyrically?
It’s mostly Jonat
