Track By Tracks: SIDEWALK MAFIA - Soulcrushers (2024)

1. 6` Under:

A brutal start to the album, as it should be. Our most "sludge" song ever. Originally there was supposed to be an intro to the album, but that idea was flushed down the toilet when this one found its place. The main riff takes you back 15 years and to our early, when the instruments were beaten, not played. You can hear a certain deep pain on the vocal side. I like this.

2. Soulcrushers:

Soulcrushers was the first single of the album. It's a story about a friend who was persecuted by evil, and it almost took his life. The sound of the song is heavy and oppressive, but also melodic and fresh.

At our live shows, this has grown to be one of the most important numbers, and it deserved to be the name of the album as well.

3. Black Baptism:

One of the first songs recorded for this album. It almost was left off the album, when we weren't sure if there would be a place for it. I'm glad that didn't happen. This brings to my mind some movies in a fun way and gives you also a sort of comic book vibe. The idea for the lyrics of the song came when I was watching a series on the streaming service, where a witch was meant to be darkly baptized by an unholy priest. It impressed me at that moment, and then it was clear to me how the lyric should go. In the studio, the sound guy said to me that sing it like you would be Elvis...

4. Without Hell:

Without Hell represents the album's overall sound quite well. There are strong bridges and heavy and lazy guitars. Also, lots of new kinds of arrangement ideas, and a new vision have been brought to the lyrics as well, as we worked more together with Johannes in this desperate story of life (or hell).

5. Hummingbird:

Hummingbird represents the album's most melodic side, with a new kind of sonic atmosphere. At the same time, the song contains familiar Sidewalk Mafia elements and heaviness, and an even more melancholic general thematic. The song's idea and topic came to me when I was talking with my good friend about failures, wrong choices, wrong behavior, and the fears and feelings of being left alone. These things stuck in my mind, and the next day I made this song in one sitting, which is not always the most typical way of working for me.

6. Cursed Lunar Eclipse:

This is a little bit blackened prog-like song, which is difficult to put in a certain box. Again all our elements can be found there, but it's still something completely different from what we're used to doing. In the drum section, you can find even a few blast beats, which is not our thing normally at all.

The lyrical side it is a dark love story about two cursed souls with no happy end.

7. Bad Karma Zombies:

Bad Karma Zombies is one of the most catchy songs from the album. The track breaks the norms of our basic sound and atmosphere. This song is a refreshing exception from the rest of the material on the album, and it will definitely be a great live song in the middle of all that melancholy and gloominess. A fictional story for all thoughtless and misbehaving people. A quiet army of zombies always waits in the night. I like the defiant sing-along vibe of the choruses, which reminds me of some forgotten song-making style.

8. Swords And Knives:

This song was written for the album at the very end, but it has grown into an important part of the album as a whole. I like the forward-attacking atmosphere of the song's bridges and the song's certain tension which came by itself in the studio when we played it in. This serves our view about what the heck is going on in the world today and the evil within it.

9. When We Dance:

This is a certain kind of spectacle. It was immediately clear that this was going to be the last song of the album. The track serves up something primal, brutal, nasty, beautiful, and epic all in one package. Seven and a half minutes long, this one grows and contains enough sections but not even one too many in this case. A really heavy and oppressive general sound, which turns into a bitterly beautiful melody in the choruses that pierces the soul. The epicness of the ending completes the album perfectly. In the end, more is better.

The text deals with the whims and fears of the mind in our brutal style, but this time in the end we dance. Maybe for fun with friends, or maybe with yourself somewhere very far away. It's up to the listeners to decide.