King of Sweden: Interregnum

I reviewed the debut album from the Norwegian band King of Sweden, The Training, five years ago this month. I gave it a largely positive review: 3.5 stars. They followed that up with Out of the Tunnel, which was quite good as well. The low points on both albums were the vocals and, unfortunately, they drag down their most recent album, Interregnum, as well.

King of Sweden had the same lineup for the first two albums. Sampsa Nelimarkka played guitar, sax, and keys while providing lead vocals. Erkka Heinilä played bass and Janne Savela provided the drum and percussion work. But only Nelimarkka remains for Interregnum. He is joined by Tomi Raikaslehto on keys and backing vocals, Joni Raikaslehto on bass and backing vocals, and Elias Ojutkangas on drums and vocals.

The opener, “Movie Night,� starts with a guitar riff straight out of Steve Howe’s bag of tricks, especially around the Relayer era of Yes. The song is largely instrumental and pretty heavy at times. All in all, it’s a good track, though it outlasts its welcome at the end with a repetitive two to three minute section.

The second track, “Breath,� is a much more serene tune, with a sort of pastoral feel. There is very nice acoustic playing by Nelimarkka, but he interrupts the flow and feel of the song when he injects his singing.

Nelimarkka sounds a bit like Frank Bornemann from Eloy and at times tries to go full manic-style Peter Hammill but without the compelling theatrics. This is most noticeable on “Father Soup,� the third track on the album, which is unlistenable to me. When one out of four tracks on an album is an absolute skip, you have a problem.

Interregnum concludes with an epic, the nearly 20-minute “Recursion.� It doesn’t have a coherent throughline, so it doesn’t reach resolution. But there are many interesting instrumental parts scattered across it, ranging from symphonic prog to fusion to metal.

King of Sweden has a lot of potential. For me, though, they will never rise above a 3/5 or 3.5/5 band with Nelimarkka on lead vocals. He has handed over the keyboards to another member on the new album; he should do the same with the lead singing and focus exclusively on guitar.

Track Listing
1. Movie Night (9:00)
2. Breath (4:58)
3. Father of Soup (7:12)
4. Recursion (19:35)

Added: September 20th 2026
Reviewer: Aaron Steelman
Score:
Related Link: King of Sweden @ bandcamp
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Language: english

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