Today’s Ask The Artist feature goes straight into the blast zone with NEKRODAWN, a Swedish death metal unit from Dalarna built for the sort of listener who hears “subtle” and immediately reaches for a heavier guitar tone.
Formed in 2022, NEKRODAWN have already carved out a vicious lane in the Swedish underground, pulling from the country’s classic death metal tradition while sharpening it with a darker, blackened edge. The band’s members carry history with GRAVE, CENTINEX, INTERMENT, THE CROWN, and HYPOCRISY, which is a polite way of saying this thing was probably never going to sound gentle.
Now NEKRODAWN are preparing to release their second album, Covenant Of Carnage, on August 21 via War Anthem Records. The record follows their debut Sculpted By Torture and promises a heavier, darker, more relentless strike: crushing riffs, thunderous drums, savage vocal attacks, and enough apocalyptic pressure to make the floor start negotiating.
Today, vocalist/guitarist Jonas Kjellgren answers a very important question.
The Question
“If Earth was ending in 24 hours, what album would be playing in the background?”
Jonas Kjellgren answers:
“I would be listening to Slayer ‘Reign In Blood’ about 50times and drink about 50 beers.”
Honestly, that is hard to argue with.
If the planet is going down, you might as well let Reign In Blood do what it was clearly designed to do.
Fifty beers may be ambitious, but so is survival.
Now onto today’s detonation.
NEKRODAWN have presented “Neath Skies Of Iron,” the latest single from Covenant Of Carnage, and it arrives exactly the way a Swedish death metal album opener should: armed, hostile, and completely uninterested in giving anyone a graceful way out.
The track sets the tone for an album built around darkness, brutality, and uncompromising aggression. NEKRODAWN do not sound like a band trying to politely modernize death metal. They sound like a band dragging the old machinery out of the basement, welding new spikes onto it, and pushing it downhill.
“Neath Skies Of Iron” leans into the band’s core strengths: serrated riffs, hammering drums, and vocals that sound less performed than exhumed. There is a classic Swedish death metal weight here, but it is blackened at the edges, carrying a colder atmosphere and a sense of looming collapse.
That balance matters. NEKRODAWN are not just chasing speed or violence for its own sake. The song works because the brutality has shape. The riffs land with intent, the atmosphere keeps tightening, and the whole thing feels like the opening gate to a record built for maximum damage.
Covenant Of Carnage arrives August 21 via War Anthem Records on CD, limited LP, and digital formats.
The covenant has been sealed. The carnage is no longer theoretical.
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