….And the stream of Swedish upcoming bands continues. This time it’s Taketh who will try to steal the (freak) show. It all started in the Swedish military service when David Dahl (vocalist) and Mikael Lindquist (guitars) met each-other and started writing music. Together with David's brother Johan on drums they played some live shows and that resulted in the band called Taketh. Bass duties were taken care of by Lars Walfridsson and in Atahan a second guitar-player was found. In 2004 they recorded a 4-track EP which served as a promotion object for labels and this resulted in a deal with the Dutch Fear-Dark label. This Freakshow is their debut full-length, so ladies and gentlemen be welcome, sit back and enjoy your visit at the Freakshow!

I think a real live freakshow has as purpose to shock and surprise you. Well to be honest, at the first time I played this album I was a little shocked and surprised indeed. The reason for this is that on the flyer, given with the promo, it says ‘a must have‘ for all fans of Soilwork and new In Flames. Well I’m a person who loves a good combination between heaviness and melody in music and vocals so I had my ears and expectations highly focused and I expected to get to hear something similar as Soilwork and In Flames. But that didn’t quite work out that way. For sure, Taketh plays pretty technical melodic death/thrash metal, but it does not have the diversity like their well-known Swedish colleagues. Especially concerning the vocals Taketh is one-dimensional. Singer David Dahl screams his lungs out in a harsh, almost black metal way. And this was what shocked me the first time, mainly because I had not expected to hear this. But now after spinning the album over and over I was getting used to the vocals and that gave my ears more space to open-up and listen to the rest of the music more careful and precisely. And getting more used with the rest I came more to the conclusion that I really can appreciate this album. I’m honest as I say that I do believe that more variation vocally would benefit to the whole sound (like it’s done in the song “Paths and crossroads”), but musically this album has been created to a very interesting piece of metal! The band itself describes their music as a sound with it’s roots in classic thrash and melodic death metal and personally I can live better with that description. Musically Taketh experience to move the sound from real fast and pounding blasts to melodic bridges and grooves. Of course Soilwork and In Flames operate on a much higher level, but listening to Taketh, two other great (Dutch) bands come up in my mind. Two bands that work in a lower league as the two Swedish bulldozers, but still on a high exceptional quality level. In the fast blast-beats and in the vocals Taketh sometimes reminds me of God Dethroned in their ‘Bloody Blasphemy’ era and in the catchy (Scandinavian) riffs and passages every now and then I hear a bit of Callenish Circle. My personal favorite songs on Freakshow are “Silence” (instrumental with very cool and catchy riffs!), “Freakshow”, “Paths and crossroads” and the finishing “A new day” (with a nice acoustic intro and a short spoken word in the middle).

The album was recorded in the Golden Cut studio in Sweden and was mixed in the Mailmen Studios in The Netherlands. The production is from a decent to good quality, perhaps the total sound is a bit dry and the drums could have been mixed more tight in. In total regard this Freakshow is a very good debut album where Taketh can be proud of. People who like their metal aggressive, yet melodic with screaming vocals on top of it, should definitely check out this album! You can listen and order your copy on the band’s or label’s website! They will also be part of the Fear Dark festivals which will visit Germany and the Netherlands in 2006 so we can check them out on stage then!