TOXAEMIA
Toxaemia has been around since January 1989, one of the pioneering bands of Swedish death metal. They made some line-up changes but the core is still intact. In three years the band has managed to record two demos and two 7” Eps. Unfortunately, Toxaemia never released the second EP, since they played and released material until 1992 when, for various reasons, took a break. It just happened they practiced less and less and eventually, it just stopped. Life stepped in and all the members left Motala. It was to be 25 years before they were all back living in the same town again. Once that happened it didn’t take them long to reform!
Toxaemia reformed in 2017 and started playing some old tunes and writing new material. Initially, it was all just to have some laughs and play some music again. The band members took it all slow and started rehearsing a little bit. Slowly they started to gel again musically. Some of the musicians had not touched their instruments since 1992 when they quit playing.
In September 2018 Toxaemia got an offer to play a local Extreme Metal Festival – Bomber Fest (Winter Edition) in thir hometown Motala on the 29th of December. This was the spark needed to light the fire in their hearts. They wrote three new songs and relearned some old tunes, and started practicing like crazy. But still, there was something missing and mid-November was when their new lead guitar player Rasmus Axelsson joined Toxaemia.
The 29th of December came and they were set to Headline a four-day festival, and after what felt like a very long day. They took the stage just before midnight and released all the band’s energy and soul into the set in front of a sold-out Bomber Bar in Motala. After this Dennis Johansson joined the band on vocals as they commited to being the best Toxaemia they could possibly can. About two weeks before Scandinavia Deathfest they found out that their friend and drummer Emil could not perform with them anymore. This was a decision not taken lightly and no shadow falled on Emil, all the band stood behind him in that. So the five-piece managed to secure the services of Perra Karlsson on drums and recorded their proper full album, “Where Paths Divide”, released by Emanzipation Records in November 2020, much to all Swedish death metal fans delight.
Fast forward four years, and Toxaemia is going stronger and ever. Emil Norrman is back in form and into the line-up, and a new studio album, titled “Rejected Souls Of Kerberus”, is recorded and ready to be released in November. The five-piece worked with Dan Swanö once again for the mixing and mastering of the album as both the band and the fans were extremely satisfied with the work he did on “Where Paths divide”. Also, this time around, like last time, the Swedes have drawn two songs from the archives of their old demos: ”Beyond the Realm” and ”Tragedies Through Centuries”. Also, a cover song is present for the first time on a Toxaemia album: Dismember and their ”I Saw Them Die”.
The result: a pure Swedish death metal bastard.
Despite Toxaemia having chosen more of a modern sound than the last album, the choice made it an overall heavier sounding record. The band also wanted to make sure that they incorporated a lot of variation to give the record the extra edge it needed to top “Where Paths Divide”. In addition to that, friend and founding member Emil Norrman added his own unique and very core Toxaemia sound into the mix giving “Rejected Souls Of Kerberus” an end result that every fan of death metal will revel into.
Line-up:
Pontus Cervin – bass
Emil Norrman – drums
Stevo Bolgakov – guitars, vocals
Dennis Johansson – vocals
Anton Petrovic – guitars