Review: “Coerced” by Gadget

Don’t call it a come back but six years after their split EP with Retaliation, a new album from Swedish Grindcore veterans Gadget fits nicely into the long awaited, highly anticipated category in the video store that Patrick Bateman frequents to return his videos. As it happens, that split EP sowed the seeds for this new burnt offering as it saw their Emilia Henriksson (Radium Grrrls) appear as a guest. She stayed on as the bands main vocalist for live shows after the pandemic and together with new guitarist and backing vocalist Kristofer Jankarls (Livet Som Insats, Axis of Despair, Infanticide) the pair revitalise the group for “Coerced“.

Comprising seven tracks written between 2019 and 2023 alongside a re-recording of much loved 2017 song, the album begins with “Nonsense“, an 86 second burst of audio violence that feels like bloody fits beating you living daylights out of your brains. The energy of the bands double barrelled output is enough to put a hole in your chest and if they’d said it was recorded live on the floor of the studio in one take it wouldn’t be a surprise. If you haven’t heard Henriksson before, her voice is reminiscent of Candace Kucsulain of American Metallic Hardcore crew Walls of Jericho.

The blistering fury continues into “No Sense Of Self“, a juggernaut of a tune that is a fiery as and short lived as the flames from a Dragon. Each song has a message behind the visceral screams and some of them are more obvious than others, the blast beats of “What Doesn’t Serve You” driving the coffin nails into those who deserve to be cut loose. In this box full of sharp objects “Gnistan” is the shortest and sharpest. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the 50,000-volt spark that travels through copper wires to penetrate clothing from a taser, this is it. Savage, feral and yet with poise and purpose.

The aforementioned 2017 re-recording is of “Funerary Rites” which finds Johan Lundmark of Prescriptiondeath and Infraction fame lending his throat. Adding gang chants to this restless and relentless savage beating is a nice touch and no doubt will get the crowd screaming along when its played live. It almost goes without saying that there is a frantic and frenetic energy to the buzz saw riffs, the drumming from William Blackmon almost otherworldly in its power. They say the recoil operated machine gun created in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim can fire 666 bullets in 60 seconds but Blackmon can achieve more beats per minute than that.

A fleeting moment of melancholic atmosphere is offered up at the start of “Flatline” before the band resume their trademark sounds, a single verse echoing around the brain like a banshee wail before the “False Pulse” takes us into a place of nuclear fallout. Digital drone sounds send a chill down the spine as the violence turns to textured industrial horror, the feeling that something wicked this way comes as inescapable as the feeling that resistance is futile. That leaves one more trick in the book in “Violently Silent“, a tune which finds the band slowing down dramatically. A mid tempo ebb and flow with scalding vocals keeps you on the edge of your seat but sadly the expected uplift doesn’t transpire [7.5/10]

Track Listing

1. Nonsense
2. No Sense Of Self
3. What Doesn’t Serve You
4. Gnistan
5. Funerary Rites (ft. Johan Lundmark of Prescriptiondeath, Infraction)
6. Flatline
7. False Pulse
8. Violently Silent

“Coerced” by Gadget is out 8th May 2026 via De:Nihil Records and is available over at bandcamp