Patrik Johansson

Source: Blabbermouth.net

CIVIL WAR — the new Swedish metal band featuring former SABATON members Rikard Sundén (guitar), Daniel Mullback (drums), Daniel Mÿhr (keyboards) and Oskar Montelius (guitar) alongside singer Patrik Johansson (ASTRAL DOORS, LION’S SHARE) and bassist Stefan “Pizza” Eriksson (VOLTURYON) — will release its full-length debut, “The Killer Angels”, on June 11 via Despotz Records. The group states: “The album deals with a lot of stuff: heroes, traitors, battles and heavy metal….and yes: we have a song called ‘Gettysburg’.”

“The Killer Angels” track listing:

01. King Of The Sun
02. First To Fight
03. Saint Patrick’s Day
04. Rome Is Falling
05. Sons Of Avalon
06. I Will Rule The Universe
07. Lucifer’s Court
08. Brother Judas
09. My Own Worst Enemy
10. Gettysburg
11. March Across The Belts (bonus track)

A three-minute YouTube clip containing audio samples of the tracks that appear on the debut EP from CIVIL WAR can be found below. The CD was released on November 13, 2012 via Despotz Records.

According to Sundén, CIVIL WAR‘s sound is “more old-school hard rock,” with “a little less keyboards” than that of SABATON. He says, “With Patrik‘s vocals on top, it becomes a different thing, but there are some parallels [to our previous band].”

Regarding how CIVIL WAR came together, b>Mullback told the Swedish-language newspaper Dalarnas Tidningar (DT), “It came pretty naturally. We always thought Patrik had a good voice and he accepted our offer when we asked him to join the band.”

“I had no hesitation about getting involved,” Patrik said. “ASTRAL DOORS certainly has a solid fan base, but we are a little more underground. I see this as an opportunity to reach a wider audience.”

The four ex members of SABATON were never involved in the songwriting process with their former band since those duties were usually handled by vocalist Joakim Brodén. But in the new group, everyone is contributing ideas.

“This has been a reawakening of sorts,” Mÿhr said. “I have never been in a situation where there has been so much creativity.”

On the topic of whether CIVIL WAR will continue SABATON‘s tradition of focusing on war-related themes in its lyrics, Mÿhr said, “No, we won’t. Now the lyrics can be about anything. [CIVIL WAR was just] a good name that sounded good.”

According to the Swedish-language newspaper Dalarnas Tidningar (DT), former SABATON members Rikard Sundén (guitar), Daniel Mullback (drums), Daniel Mÿhr (keyboards) and Oskar Montelius (guitar) have formed a new band, CIVIL WAR, with singer Patrik Johansson (ASTRAL DOORS, LION’S SHARE) and bassist Stefan “Pizza” Eriksson (VOLTURYON). The group is currently writing songs for its debut album.

“It came pretty naturally,” Mullback stated about CIVIL WAR‘s formation. “We always thought Patrik had a good voice and he accepted our offer when we asked him to join the band.”

“This has been a reawakening of sorts,” Mÿhr said. “I have never been in a situation where there has been so much creativity. We became a full band a week and a half ago and we already have 6-7 songs in the works.”

CIVIL WAR will continue writing songs during the summer with the hopes of releasing an EP this fall. A full-length album is tentatively due early next year.

When asked how the new band will sound, Johansson said, “The one thing we all agree on is that we want to have good melodies. We can rock as hard as ever, but the melodies are important.”

Although the details behind SABATON‘s split with Sundén, Mullback, Mÿhr and Montelius have not been fully revealed, the group’s former members make it clear that they have not spoken with Brodén and SABATON bassist Pär Sundström since they went their separate ways.

“There have been rumors that we did not want to continue playing together anymore but that is simply not the case,” said Mullback. There are also many people who believe that we are not playing on the new SABATON album, [‘Carolus Rex’], that it’s the new band that recorded the tracks. But that’s not true either. It is us.”

Photo credit: Lars Dafgård