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Music

Graveyard’s Video for “The Apple and The Tree” Will Make You Want to Dance Around a Fire

The Swedish hard rock kings will release a new album called 'Innocence & Decadence' next month.

Photo courtesy of Graveyard

On September 25, Swedish rock quartet Graveyard returns with its highly-anticipated fourth album, Innocence & Decadence. The band, which formed in Gothenburg, Sweden nearly a decade ago, first appeared on the international radar in 2008 with an eponymous debut album that showcased its tight, musical chops, its penchant for doomy blues-rock, and singer Joakim Nilsson’s expressive, multi-octave vocals. Over the years, Graveyard has become a stronger and more compelling force, releasing critically-acclaimed albums, including the explosive Hisingen Blues in 2011 and Lights Out in 2012, while developing a live swagger that has captivated everyone from underground cool kids, to old-school rockers and metalheads, to more mainstream audiences at festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella.

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With Innocence & Decadence, Graveyard presents its most daring and diverse musical explorations to date, alternately trading off or merging its classic psych and blues leanings with spacey krautrock-inspired rhythms, soulful ballads (complete with female backup singers), and a little high-energy rock ‘n’ roll. “With this record, we did the same thing we have been doing, but we pushed it even more,” says guitarist Jonatan Ramm, on a call with Noisey from his home in Sweden. “We've been trying to grow our spectrum of influences on every record, so this seems natural for us.” While in some band’s hands, dramatic stylistic changes from track to track would be distracting at best, with Graveyard it makes for an as a cohesive, well-rounded listen, despite Jonatan’s insistence that, “We never have a plan for what we’re doing.”

The album, which was produced by Johan Lindström (Tonbruket) and Janne Hansson (ABBA, The Hives, Opeth) at Stockholm’s famed Atlantis Studios, is Graveyard’s first since it reunited with original member Truls Mörck following the departure of bassist Rikard Edlund last fall. Though Truls had co-written music and played guitar on the band’s first record, he left before it was released and the band’s career took off. "I thought for a while that maybe he’d feel strange coming back and playing bass when he had been the guitar player from the start, but he likes it, and we enjoy having him in the band very much,” Jonatan says. “I think it's a lot fun for him to come back and see what happened when he was gone.” As with every Graveyard record, songwriting duties were shared between the four members, but this time around Truls and Jonatan each took a turn on a lead vocal track as well, with Truls contributing to the trippy, “From a Hole in the Wall,” and Jonatan lending his rich, earthy croon to, “Far Too Close.”

Whether planned intentionally or not, Graveyard’s collective mindset seems to be reflected in the video for “The Apple and The Tree,” the first single from Innocence & Decadence. Directed by Jonas Petersson and shot outside Fagersta, Sweden (hometown of The Hives), the video depicts the bandmates on a countryside farm, helping out with various labors such as chopping wood and driving a tractor (“lumbersexuals,” eat your hearts out), while also taking time to enjoy life and—most importantly—to dance around a bonfire. The album’s title comes from a line in the song, and, according to a statement from the band, Graveyard lies somewhere between those two extremes. “It's kind of where the band started out and the journey to where we are right now,” Jonatan says.

Innocence & Decadence comes out 9/25 on Nuclear Blast, and Graveyard will be hitting the road for a US tour come December.

December 4 Columbus, OH Ace of Cups
December 5 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
December 6 Minneapolis, MN Fine Line Music Cafe
December 8 Denver, CO Summit Music Hall
December 9 Salt Lake City, UT In the Venue
December 10 Missoula, MT Stage 112
December 11 Seattle, WA Chop Suey
December 14 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
December 15 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
December 17 Phoenix, AZ Crescent Ballroom
December 19 Austin, TX Mohawk