Symphony Of Sweden is currently one of the fastest-growing upcoming rock bands from Sweden on Spotify. To celebrate that Symphony Of Sweden just released a brand new single, “Just Let It Bleed” along with its acoustic version and official video. The band’s previous track, “Lay Them Down (A broken son’s cry)” came out in August and immediately became a fan favorite. Now the band’s new song also aims for that title.

Lee’sstatement about “Just Let It Bleed”: „Evan sent me a music track at the beginning of this year. I listened to it a couple of times but something was off. I started working on another song instead but it was still in the back of my head. So I took a weekend and just worked on that one. And then I got it. I messaged Evan and asked him to start the whole song with the chorus. A fat drum slaps the right into the chorus. And when that was changed it all came together for me.
I have a female friend that has been through some tough times. She just doesn’t know how to deal with it all, so she shuts down instead. That’s what the lyrics are about. ‘Just Let It Bleed’ – let it hurt, be pissed off, be sad, scream, punch a wall, or whatever. Just let it bleed.”

Evan’s statement: „Earlier this year I started planning for a new album and as usual, we started to record some drum arrangements with both Erik ‘Drumerik’ Günther, and another great drummer, Niklas Bullen Bengtsson. On this particular track, Bullen plays the drums and it’s our first track released with him holding the sticks!
After recording and mixing the drums, I sent them to Henrik with instructions. Then Henrik came up with ideas in no time and I approved that I liked, and he tracked down the guitars and bass. I might change something along the way, mainly doing it slightly more simply, for example removing an unnecessary chord change or so, but basically, we have a lot of the song already there with the guitars and drums. Then I went on myself with arranging keyboards and also orchestral strings for this track. And then finally Lee received a stereo mix with the music and he wrote the top line, melody, and lyrics. I had a special vision in mind for this song and I want to raise the bar for each track we do with Symphony of Sweden, so if I think we can do better, we can do better – for this track, it happened twice! The initial guitar idea was good but not super good. But no worries, Henrik came up with a better idea just a few hours later. Then when we recorded the vocals, I said to Lee, this track is so strong but I know we can make an even better chorus, let’s take a few days rest and then you try to find that killer hook we are looking for. And then he came back with the new idea and I just smiled and said, yes this is how it should be!
It is always a relief to release tracks, and albums even more of course, but this track is important as it is a start of a new era where we collaborate with both a new drummer and a new guitarist!”

And talking about newcomers: the new guitarist the band is working with now is Lee‘s cousin. “We have talked for many years about doing something together but the timing was never right. Then I introduced him to Evan and hence got know to each other and they really hit it off.“

“It is always a refreshing thing to invite different collaborators but with Henrik, it was a no-brainer as he is a cousin to Lee, and they have known each other since childhood. So it was more strange Lee never told me about Henrik for our previous albums” – Evan laughed off. “Anyways, Henrik comes up with song ideas extremely fast, plays great, and is overall super nice to both work and hang around with!”

Henrik Bodin-Sköld started to play the piano when he was only 4 years old. He has always had a good ear for music, so he didn’t need to learn music theory. 

“I started out with piano and clarinet as a kid but found the guitar as a 13-year-old. This was about the same time as I discovered heavy/death metal (Metallica, Opeth, In Flames…etc.) so those bands were a natural way for me to learn how to play metal as well as acoustic guitar. However, it was not until 2011 when I actually joined a ‘real’ metal band and started to write songs on my own. In 2013, I created my first band called Norrsköld, a black/death metal band with folk music influences. We’ve made a couple of European tours and released a number of albums. I’ve also had a band called Amforia, mostly based on acoustic guitar and harmonized vocals.

When I heard Symphony of Sweden’s latest album, “Saints Of Yesterday” I congratulated Lee during the summer for being a part of a really good-sounding band. He mentioned that the band was in need of a guitarist/songwriter. Sometime later I got in contact with Evan and got the opportunity to ‘test write’ a couple of songs. And the cooperation between me, Evan, and Lee has gone very smoothly ever since.”

And how was the working process of “Just Let It Bleed“? “I got a question and the main idea of a song structure from Evan and immediately started to write the actual riffs and melodies for the song. As always during compositions, the actual songwriting went pretty fast. The main idea was to keep the song pretty straightforward yet melodic, and I think we really succeeded in this song. I’m pretty fond of harmonized guitars so there are some layers of guitars on this specific tune. The songwriting with Evan and Lee works extremely well. Evan has a great sense of the structure and atmosphere of the song even before it’s been written. I usually come up with riffs and melodies quite fast. And Lee has a really good sense of vocal melodies and words, which really shows on ‘Just Let It Bleed’. I think it´s a really good representative song of our three-man composing abilities. Both Evan and Lee are really talented musicians and it feels like a really solid ground for creating future hits together.“