Time Signature
Speak Swedish or die...
Genre: hardcore / crossover
Bob Malmström's debut album is a quite energetic and punky affair which draws extensively on hardcore punk and crust punk, which means d-beating galore and simple riffage along with a lot of attitude. Most of the tunes are short and intense, with an average length of about 2:10 (although a couple of tracks are in the 3 minutes department).
So, there are plenty of attractions to the hardcore punk fan on this album. There are plenty of metal elements, too, although "Tala Svenska Eller Dö" is one of those crossover releases that are mostly inclined towards hardcore punk. There are some heavier more metallic elements, such as the chorus of the title track and some of the palm-muted chucking riffs in tracks like "Kött Är Allas Rätt", "Eliten", and "Håll Kusten Ren" while "Skål!" is a kind of folk metal song. Moreover, there are a lot of melodic leads on this album and the vocals make use of black metal screeching and death growls. So, fans of crossover thrash are likely to find this album appealing.
Lyrically, it seems that Bob Malmström makes use of the sort of satirical parodying right-wing/conservative lyrics associated with Billy Milano's work with S.O.D. and M.O.D. (I mean "Tala Senska Eller Dö" means "Speak Swedish or Die", and the band promote themselves as a capitalist and bourgeois hardcore... or rather "borgacore" band).
In any case "Tala Svenska Eller Dö" is an energetic and intense crossover album which, while leaning towards hardcore punk, is still full of metal elements.