After supporting Accept on the Scandinavian leg of their "Humanoid" tour in November 2024, Sister Sin, the Swedish heavy metallers around frontwoman Liv Jagrell, announced a club tour for spring 2025 with four dates across their home country. They want to "raze Borås, Trollhättan, Gävle and Linköping to the ground" and, above all, "make rock and metal great again". That the latter is sorely needed will once again become evident tonight at "Musikhuset" in Gävle.
The conditions for a great rock and metal experience couldn't be more perfect tonight: It's a Saturday, the venue in the former Seamen's Church is impressive not only from the outside, but also from the inside, and on top of that, "Musikhuset" is located right next to Gävle's central railway station, so even people from outside Gävle, like us, can easily reach the venue. Not to mention that Sister Sin also bring along guitar-heavy reinforcement: Searching For Serenity and S.O.R.M. And yet, it's pretty empty when Searching For Serenity, the first act on stage tonight, start their set with the stand-alone single "3:03".
Vocalist Fredrik Vintlöw, guitarist Christian Hagel, bassist Tommy Mellgren and drummer Christian Morales describe themselves as "four guys from Sweden playing rock with a modern punk vibe", and it's safe to say that the sound of Searching For Serenity is more mainstream compared to the two following tougher bands, especially on their current third studio album "Yesterdays". It will be interesting to see how their respective careers develop in the future. Tonight, the quartet from Vänersborg, which has been "playing together since 2015", wins the attendees over with an entertaining show and songs from their three studio albums "Demise" ("Bumpy Ride (Here We Go)", "Shadow In The Dark"), "Human Disgrace" ("Stuck In The Mud", "We Are") and "Yesterdays" ("Always Late", "Directions", "Yesterdays"), as well as the stand-alone singles "Lost" and "Rose" and the yet-to-be-released track "BlackRock".
Just in time for the second act of the evening, S.O.R.M, a few more attendees arrive at the venue, some of them specifically for S.O.R.M. To the sounds of Ronja Rövardotter's "Rövarsången" and amid loud cheers from the crowd, Micke Holm (vocals and guitar), Patrik Sandström (lead guitar), Johan Östman (bass) and Robin Wernebratt (drums) enter the stage and start their set with "Hellride", which is also the opener of their 2023 debut album "Under My Skin".
S.O.R.M were founded in the small Swedish town of Lidköping (Not to be confused with Linköping, one of Sweden's biggest cities) in 2017 and have since released two versions of their EP "Hellraiser" as well as the aforementioned debut album. Accordingly, the setlist is dominated by songs from "Hellraiser" ("Hellraiser", "Gypsy Queen") and "Under My Skin" ("Shot Gun Johnny", "Crazy", "Too Hot For Love", "Demon Child", "Under My Skin", "I Die For My Rock N Roll"). It's amusing how heavily influenced S.O.R.M are by the American heavy metal legends W.A.S.P., starting with the stylisation of the band name and the fact that neither W.A.S.P. nor S.O.R.M want to reveal what their respective band names stand for. At some point in between their own songs, S.O.R.M even encourage the audience to sing the chorus of W.A.S.P.'s "I Wanna Be Somebody". Then, the intro to W.A.S.P.'s "Wild Child" is played before S.O.R.M actually perform a W.A.S.P. cover, namely "Sleeping (In The Fire)". Towards the end of the set, the current single "Scream" is played, a first taste of the quartet's upcoming second studio album.
Overall, S.O.R.M deliver a solid
hard rock / heavy metal show, interacting a lot with the audience and
effortlessly getting the crowd to clap and sing along. Live, S.O.R.M
also sound heavier than on record, which, in my humble opinion, is
almost always a good thing. And if you like W.A.S.P., you can't go
wrong with attending a S.O.R.M show. If you happen to be in Gävle on
5th April 2025, you can look forward to seeing S.O.R.M
frontman Micke Holm again soon when he returns to "Musikhuset"
for a solo performance, alongside Crucified Barbara frontwoman Mia
"Coldheart" Karlsson.
Contrary to expectations, the venue doesn't really fill up either as the stage time of tonight's headliner, Sister Sin, approaches, so it can now be concluded that a) the audience is almost exclusively male and b) it consists mostly of middle-aged people. The latter is something I have already noticed in the past few years, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, at various rock, metal and goth events. One wonders where the next generation of the subcultural scenes is, especially in front of the stage. And where is the scene as a whole tonight? At the concert of the Iron Maiden cover band Made In Iron at "Järnvägskrogen", just 90 metres away from "Musikhuset"? The city is not to blame, because in Gävle, scene-relevant events are regularly organised, so there must also be an audience for them in Gävle. Be that as it may, when Liv Jagrell (vocals), Jimmy Hiltula (guitar), Sebastian Svedlund (rhythm guitar), Andreas Strandh (bass) and Dave Sundberg (drums) enter the stage and start their set with "Sound Of The Underground" from their third studio album "True Sound Of The Underground", all those thoughts vanish... Wow, what energy!
It's not the first time I see Liv Jagrell live on stage, but my first Sister Sin show - in Finland's capital Helsinki in December 2010 - was just over fourteen years ago, and over time, the memories of it seem to have faded. Not that long ago, in December 2023, I saw Liv Jagrell perform with Liv Sin in Sweden's capital Stockholm. Already back then, she jumped and headbanged from the get-go like there was no tomorrow, yet tonight's show feels somehow different. More straightforward and rock'n'roll, especially when songs like the U.D.O. cover "24/7" are played, with Liv Jagrell and the string instrumentalists all headbanging in unison. It's easily the most impressive performance I've seen from her so far.
The setlist includes songs from Sister Sin's latest four studio albums "Switchblade Serenades" ("Death Will Greet Us"), "True Sound Of The Underground" ("Outrage", "Heading For Hell", "Better Than Them"), "Now And Forever" ("Hearts Of Cold", "Fight Song") and "Black Lotus" ("Chaos Royale", "Desert Queen", "Sail North"), as well as the Cinderella cover "Somebody Save Me". At some point, the small crowd is rocking so hard that they manage to push apart the two barriers in front of the stage. Yes, sometimes it's not about how many people are rocking in front of the stage, but how hard. Jimmy Hiltula himself once said that while rock might only exist "on a smaller scale" in the future, "we still want to be right there playing".
To make one thing clear: Tonight's emptiness is a rare sight for Sister Sin. Just last night, the band, which was founded in Gothenburg nearly a quarter of a century ago, played a completely sold-out show in Trollhättan, and the kick-off show of this club tour in Borås was packed as well, with "people flying in from Switzerland, Germany etc.". Perhaps people on the Swedish east coast simply haven't realised that Sister Sin, who had suddenly disbanded in November 2015, reunited in December 2019? The timing of the reunion was, of course, incredibly unfortunate, with the unexpected years-long Covid-19 pandemic just around the corner. Accordingly, Sister Sin recently stated that "2024 was a year of resurrection" and "2025 will be the year of retribution". You'd better take the quintet at their word, because tonight, they kept all their promises. They came, they saw, and they delivered.
Author: Stefanie Nysand
