Unleashed

Unleashed is a Swedish death metal band formed in 1989 by bassist Johnny Hedlund after he left Nihilist for personal reasons. The band was one of the first death metal groups to write songs about history and Scandinavian culture instead of the violent and negative lyrics that are common in the genre. In 1991, the band released their debut studio album, Where No Life Dwells, and toured with Morbid Angel in Europe and United States. In 1992, Unleashed released their second studio album, Shadows in the Deep, including a cover version of Venom's Countess Bathory. Their next studio albums were Across the Open Sea in 1993 and Victory in 1995, the latter being the last album which guitarist Fredrik Lindgren played on. Lindgren focused on playing punk rock, and Unleashed replaced him with Fredrik Folkare, who played guitar on the fifth Unleashed studio album Warrior in 1997. The band went on hiatus, after 7–8 years of recording and touring. They were concentrating on life outside the music business, their musical side projects, and studying. After a reissue of the band's classics in 2002, the band released a new album called Hell's Unleashed in 2002, and they began to tour once again. This was also the same year Hedlund had to deal with allegations of having Nazi sympathies. It seemed that Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters wanted to approach Johnny Hedlund to contribute lead vocals to one of the songs for his Probot metal project, but the album producer, Matt Sweeney, discouraged him from doing so because of the supposed Nazi sympathies of Hedlund.[1]. Hedlund quickly branded these accusations as false and stated, Unleashed praises nature, beast and man. Man....regardless of background, place of birth or color of the skin. In 2004, Unleashed released their seventh studio album, Sworn Allegiance. In October 2006, the band released their eighth studio album, Midvinterblot. Unleashed toured Europe in November 2006 as part of the Masters of Death tour, with Grave, Dismember, and Entombed. On February and March 2007 they headlined a North American tour with Krisiun and Belphegor. June 2008 saw the release of their ninth studio album entitled Hammer Battalion. Band was formed in Kungsängen. Current line-up is: Johnny Hedlund (bass, vocals), Fredrik Folkare (lead guitars, ex-Siebenbürgen), Thomas Olsson (rhythm guitars, former Julie Laughs Nomore member) and Anders Schultz (drums).