Symphony Of Sweden released "The Grim Reaper"

Symphony Of Sweden released a new song on the 2nd of July from their upcoming album, and with „The Grim Reaper” they are taking it to the next level.

Lee’sstatement: „I wanted to tell a story about one thing we all will face. The one thing we can't run from. The thing that is for sure. But I wanted to make death more into a living thing, that he is always around the corner. He is always listening and he knows exactly what you do.

I see him as the man that follows you through life. Knows your mistakes and secrets. Sometimes he comes way too early, but that's the story for that person. Some lucky people that lived a long and happy life may see him as an old - I'm not gonna say friend, but as a person, you gonna meet at some point, and when it's time, they will greet him.

And I like to think that. He knows that sometimes he comes too early for some people, and he doesn't want to do his job. But that's just it. It's his job, he is The Grim Reaper.

The message for the listeners is to try to look at death in a different way.”

Evan’s statement: „The Grim Reaper is a track that was initially built from drum sessions we recorded back in January with Erik. Those sessions were actually for a couple of other songs but I thought it would be nice to record some more drums for upcoming songs as well. So I gave Erik some reference tracks to play along with and I believe the drums for The Grim Reaper are inspired by a Disturbed track.

I recorded the drums, edited and arranged them in a way that would fit Symphony Of Sweden, and then sent the drums as a stereo file to Jim for adding some cool guitar riffs, which he did really fast and great.

He sent the guitar files back to me and I added some keyboards but still, it was a pretty massive guitar-based track. I sent the rough mix over to Lee, who made the lyrics and top-line (melody). We recorded the vocals a couple of months later, and then I started the fun work to re-arrange and polish the track to sound ”as a record”. During the vocal recordings, I had a feeling that Lee was not totally satisfied with the arrangement, so I re-arranged the track, removing the guitars and drums completely from the verses, and added my own secret weapon to there: a Yamaha Electric Grand from the late '70s. I also got a vision to add some fanfare-like keyboards to the choruses, and I guess they are a bit inspired by the Rainbow track, Stargazer!

With the softer verses, powerful bridge and choruses, and the killer middle 8, the overall feeling of The Grim Reaper is epic! We hope new and old fans will love the track as much as we do!”

The band had an extra surprise for their fans because they released an extra song along with The Grim Reaper, called Bailey. "Bailey was one of the first songs we recorded for our new album" - Evan said. "An epic track, almost a ballad, about a guy joining the army. The outro part - which will be just wonderful to perform live - could be repeated over and over again, and having a huge crowd singing it for us would be a dream coming true! You will understand what I mean when you hear it!

As it is still a no-go to perform live, it's a perfect time to release new songs instead. We don’t want to rush with a full album even though we have come a long way, but these two tracks were among the first ones we recorded for it. The Grim Reaper is also a good teaser of our slightly harder sound for our upcoming album, even though we will never forget our symphonic legacy as well."