Sweden has never been short of Heavy riff-dealers, but Tidal Wave have spent the better part of a decade carving out a lane that is unmistakably their own — rooted in the fuzz-soaked tradition of Scandinavian Stoner Rock yet restless enough to outgrow any single label. “Volume Tree,” their third studio album, arrives on June 05, 2026 via Ripple Music and confirms what “The Lord Knows” (2023) already hinted at: this Sundsvall four-piece is not coasting on formula. They are building something. Recorded across three separate studios and mixed by three different engineers, the album was conceived as a deliberate collection of sonic forces, each track engineered to inhabit its own atmosphere and character. Mastered by Joona Hassinen at Studio Underjord, with cover artwork by Kristoffer Nordgren (Prettyshittyinc), “Volume Tree” is the most coherent and sonically ambitious statement Tidal Wave have made — and, track for track, their heaviest. The shift is felt immediately. Where the self-titled debut leaned into grunge warmth and “The Lord Knows” sharpened the riff-craft, “Volume Tree” descends into darker, more monolithic territory. The textures are denser, the dynamics more architecturally precise, and the band’s collective instinct for tension — when to hold it, when to release it — has reached a new level of maturity. Alexander ‘Sunkan’ Sundqvist‘s vocals remain the most expressive instrument in the room, moving between aggressive and incisive delivery to warmer, more melodic registers without ever losing emotional coherence. Behind him, Jesper ‘Jupiter’ Sjödin, Adam ‘Aden’ Nordin, and Rasmus ‘Raz’ Sundberg operate as a unit that is simultaneously granite-solid and surprisingly dynamic. “The Orb” opens the record with a brief Atmospheric passage before the bottom drops out and the band announces itself with conviction: massive riffing, a monolithic rhythmic foundation, and Sundqvist‘s vocals delivering evocative, dark-toned lyrics over the top. It is not a slow build — it is an immediate statement of intent. The song moves with purpose, alternating incisive instrumental passages with well-constructed tempo shifts that develop its central theme organically. The guitar solo arrives like a rupture in the sound wall, slicing through with equal parts Heavy Psych abrasion and Stoner/Doom atmosphere. It is a track that immediately establishes the album’s sonic coordinates: modern Heavy Rock with proto-Doom inflections, built to last. “Hangman” maintains that tension without releasing it. The track balances the oppressive gravity of Doom with lysergic, enveloping passages drawn from the Heavy Psych lexicon — a combination that, in lesser hands, would feel contradictory. Here it feels inevitable. Sundqvist‘s vocal performance is one of the strongest on the record: dynamic, driving, always in service of the song’s arc. Nordin‘s bass lines are deep and load-bearing throughout, and Sundberg‘s drumming provides the kind of granite-solid foundation that the song demands. The riff construction is deliberate and rewarding, and the intensity never drops across the track’s full duration. “Earth” is where the album makes its most explicit bow toward Black Sabbath worship — and it earns that reference rather than simply invoking it. The track opens with a thunderous rhythmic section, low-end bass lines interlocking with down-tuned guitar riffs in a dense, pachiderm-like groove. Sundqvist‘s vocals navigate Doom-laden passages before the song builds through a controlled crescendo, culminating in a full-force sonic detonation that spills all the valve-driven power the band has been accumulating. The track does not settle into a single mode: it moves between deep, droning passages and explosive releases, between raw Stoner abrasion and Heavy Metal attack. It is chameleonic and restless, closing with an acceleration that brings the band into rawer, more stripped-back territory — one of the most compelling structural journeys on the record. “Temple of Humanity” is a different kind of statement. The track takes classic Heavy Rock vocabulary and runs it through a more progressive, compositionally adventurous filter — one that feels genuinely personal rather than derivative. Tempo shifts and a continuously evolving structure are its primary tools, with technical passages that reveal the depth of the band’s collective craft. Sundqvist‘s vocal dynamics are pushed further here, and the result is a song that occupies the tracklist not just as a stylistic detour but as a necessary counterpoint — demonstrating that the same intensity present in the album’s rawer moments can be channeled through more complex compositional architecture with equal effect. “Sideburns” is the album’s shortest track at 2:24 and its sharpest. A female voice opens the track — “Oh my god, look at these sideburns…” — and the song launches into a concentrated burst of technique and power. Heavy Psych guitar inserts give the sound a lysergic edge that sits interestingly against the track’s otherwise tight, snarling delivery. It is a study in economy: everything that needs to be said is said, and the rest is silence. “Shapeshifter” pushes the band toward modern American Heavy Rock territory — the kind of Desert-adjacent, riff-forward sound that carries echoes of the US Stoner underground — though it is filtered thoroughly through Tidal Wave‘s own sensibility. The vocal approach here is aggressive and precise, the riff work monumental, and Sundberg delivers one of the album’s most physically imposing drum performances. The guitar solo section is where the track distinguishes itself most: drawing on a Blue Cheer-adjacent spirit of maximal, distorted tonal density without sacrificing the song’s sense of space and air. It is one of those rare tracks that sounds simultaneously massive and uncluttered.”Manuscript 512” extends that momentum into the album’s most expansive compositional territory — at over six minutes, it is among the longest pieces on the record, and it earns its runtime. The opening riffing is striking and immediately authoritative, and the track develops through a succession of tempo changes and enveloping mid-section passages before gathering energy through a sustained crescendo that leads directly into a final lysergic guitar solo. The lyricism here is rough and evocative in equal measure, and the structural confidence with which the band navigates the track’s various phases speaks to how far they have come as songwriters. The album closes with “Skitliv,” and the choice to end here says something considered about the band’s intentions. The track opens with a deeper, less overtly Heavy sound that foregrounds Sundqvist‘s vocal warmth and expressiveness in a way that no other track on the record quite does. Guitar arpeggios and a deep, propulsive bass line build through a carefully constructed crescendo — precise, unhurried, and genuinely moving — bringing the album to a close with emotional weight rather than brute force. “Volume Tree” consolidates Tidal Wave‘s position firmly within Ripple Music‘s roster of essential Heavy Rock acts — not through imitation of genre archetypes but through the development of a singular and increasingly assured voice. These eight tracks demonstrate a band in full command of their tools: monumental riffs, a vocal presence capable of extraordinary range, rhythmic sections that carry the structural weight of the music without burying its dynamics, and a compositional intelligence that finds space for Heavy Psych detours, Doom atmospheres, and raw Stoner power within a single, coherent album statement. They do not need to replicate the past to hit hard. “Volume Tree” makes that point clearly, and at volume.
Tracklist
01. The Orb (05:24)
02. Hangman (04:44)
03. Earth (06:35)
04. Temple of Humanity (05:24)
05. Sideburns (02:24)
06. Shapeshifter (03:37)
07. Manuscript 512 (06:25)
08. Skitliv (04:55)
Lineup
Alexander ‘Sunkan’ Sundqvist / Vocals
Jesper ‘Jupiter’ Sjödin / Guitar
Adam ‘Aden’ Nordin / Bass
Rasmus ‘Raz’ Sundberg / Drums