Album Review: Dead Lord – Surrender

Dead Lord’s fourth album Surrender is a fitting soundtrack to this strange, lost summer of 2020. Anyone familiar with the Swedes will know the sounds they specialise in – unabashed Thin Lizzy worship with nods to the likes of KISS and UFO – but Surrender shows a significant tightening in both their delivery and songwriting. And despite their obvious odes to the past, Surrender is more timeless than throwback.

Close your eyes, crank it up, forget that you’re still festering inside alone and let the warm, upbeat vibes transport you to some hazy Swedish retro rock festival, lost in a sea of shaggy haircuts, mammoth moustaches and denim cut-offs plastered in patches. You can almost feel the sunshine and smell the beer as you get lost in the many swaggering guitar solos throughout this album.

But look beyond the uplifting riffs and heartfelt, lighter-raising choruses and you’ll see there’s a thread of melancholy running through Surrender. Song titles like Evil Always Wins, Dark End Of The Rainbow, The Loner’s Ways and Messin’ Up suggest that bumpy roads led to these jaunty melodies, while final track Dystopia warns ‘You’ve got nowhere to run, and there’s nowhere to hide’, and closes with an air raid siren – capturing the dread and uncertainty currently felt around the world. The muted palette cover artwork shows a suited pair of shoulders with a toxic green cloud of smoke where their head should be. Let’s face it: who on Earth isn’t feeling like that right now?

With Surrender, Dead Lord encourage us to make the best out of bad situations. As the title suggests, we’ve just got to accept the unknown, and enjoy the good times when they come, which is certainly possible with an album as fun as this. Turn it up loud and take the advice of frontman Hakim Krim: 'Rock now, cry later.'

Verdict: 3/5

For Fans Of: Thin Lizzy, KISS, The Hellacopters

Surrender is released on September 4 via Century Media