New Music Review: AVATAR 'Construction of Souls – Single'

Rating: 7.5 / 10 Stars

AVATAR is: Johannes Eckerström (Vocals), Jonas Jarlsby (Guitars), Tim Öhrström (Guitars), Henrik Sandelin (Bass), and John Alfredsson (Drums)

REVIEW – There is a particular kind of grin that only AVATAR can put on a heavy song: theatrical, crooked, deeply committed to the bit, and still sharp enough to draw blood. With “Construction of Souls,” set to arrive November 26th through Black Waltz Records / Thirty Tigers, the Swedish metal troupe step into the strange seasonal lane of the holiday single and immediately drag it into their own warped universe. Infrared Magazine lists the track as a standalone single released via Black Waltz Records / Thirty Tigers, while Apple Music identifies it as a one-song, four-minute release.

Of course, calling “Construction of Souls” a Christmas song requires the kind of quotation marks that can barely contain the joke. This is AVATAR’s version of holiday spirit: mechanical, absurd, darkly funny, and full of industrialized menace. Press around the single framed it as the band’s take on a Christmas release, with the song tied to the idea of robots taking over the human project and building upon the bones of the past. That is exactly the kind of concept that lets AVATAR do what they do best: take something familiar, throw it through a funhouse mirror, and let the reflection come back heavier, stranger, and somehow more honest.

The first thing that grabs you is the chug. Not a throwaway chug, not a background chug, but that satisfying AVATAR lockstep where the riff does not merely move forward; it stomps with purpose. There is a cool, almost ritual cadence to the track, the kind of pulse that makes the body understand the song before the mind has finished unpacking the weirdness. The guitar movement feels industrial without losing its human grime, mechanical without becoming sterile. It is metal built like factory machinery operated by circus maniacs.

Johannes Eckerström remains the perfect narrator for this kind of madness. His voice can turn a phrase into prophecy, punchline, threat, or carnival announcement, sometimes within the same passage. On “Construction of Souls,” he sounds like he is guiding listeners through a holiday workshop in a parallel universe where the elves unionized, the robots won, and Santa’s floor plan was designed by someone with a doctorate in dread. The performance has that essential AVATAR quality: theatrical enough to be funny, committed enough to become unsettling.

The song’s strength lies in how efficiently it builds its world. At roughly four minutes, “Construction of Souls” does not sprawl. It arrives, locks into its groove, raises the machinery, and lets the band’s personality do the rest. Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström keep the guitar attack thick and precise, while Henrik Sandelin and John Alfredsson make the rhythm section feel like a conveyor belt carrying something alive toward assembly. There is humor here, but the band never plays like the joke is more important than the song.

That has always been one of AVATAR’s great advantages. They understand spectacle, but they also understand that spectacle collapses without musical weight. “Construction of Souls” could have been novelty. Instead, it lands as a compact, riff-driven statement from a band that knows how to make absurdity sound heavy and heaviness feel theatrical. It has the bounce, the chug, the cadence, and the strange aftertaste of something designed to be seasonal only in the most twisted possible sense.

As a standalone single, “Construction of Souls” fits neatly into the band’s post-Hunter Gatherer period, when AVATAR were releasing new material through their own Black Waltz Records imprint while operating under the Thirty Tigers banner. Coverage at the time also noted that the song followed other 2021 tracks including “Going Hunting,” “Barren Cloth Mother,” and “So Sang the Hollow.” That context matters because “Construction of Souls” does not feel like an isolated gag. It feels like another corridor in the band’s expanding theatrical complex.

With “Construction of Souls,” AVATAR prove that even a holiday-adjacent single can become an excuse for world-building, riff worship, and mischievous metal grandeur. It is weird, catchy, churning, and delightfully off-center, the kind of song that could only come from a band that treats every release like a stage entrance. The forest may be dangerous, the apocalypse may be worth hailing, and apparently Christmas belongs to the machines now.