Sweden’s classic rock heavyweights SPIRITUAL BEGGARS are back in action with their new, 8th studio album release, ”Earth Blues”, just in time to celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary in style...

”Earth Blues” is the follow-up to 2010’s highly acclaimed “Return To Zero” and doesn’t only showcase the group’s trademark sound elements, gathering the best of the Classic Rock, melodic Stoner/Doom Metal and 70’s Hardrock genres, but also stresses the untamed joy and positive energy everpresent throughout the creation of this album. SPIRITUAL BEGGARS’ extremely tight instrumental interaction is delivered by the same recording line-up as on the predecessor studio album, featuring bandleader Michael Amott (Arch Enemy, ex Carcass) on guitars, Ludwig Witt (Grand Magus, ex Firebird) on drums, Per Wiberg (ex Opeth) on keyboards, Sharlee D’Angelo (Arch Enemy, Witchery) on bass and Apollo Papathanasio (ex Firewind) on vocals.

Next to the solidification of the band’s line up, ”Earth Blues” strong character and musical depth is also supported by the fact the the sessions for this album mark a return to the band recording the song’s basic parts in a ”live situation”, almost like in a gigantic jam. Guitarist and main songwriter Michael Amott further explains: ”We started the recording process of ”Earth Blues” with an eight day long session at ”Fat Guitar Studios” (Sweden) with knob twiddler Roberth Ekholm, a truly great dude who really knows how to capture a band jamming live, sadly a rare quality in recording engineers nowadays! We continued with some overdubs at various studios in Sweden, and it’s all come together super easy this time. We finished up the mixes with Staffan Karlsson (Spiritual Beggars, Shining, etc.) at his studio in Halmstad, Sweden. Sonically, I think this might be our finest hour yet. It’s a raw, heavy and honest record.”

Once again SPIRITUAL BEGGARS have effortlessly managed to create a very appealing mix of the authentic feeling from the golden 70’s reminiscent in the vein of iconic bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow, UFO or also Uriah Heep. At the same time they also returned to their own roots, nodding towards the vibe of early SPIRITUAL BEGGARS records, yet never losing its very contemporary edge. All these things considered, “Earth Blues” doesn’t only mark the pinnacle in the band’s fertile and challenging musical evolution throughout the course of eight studio albums, but also comes across in a fresh and up-to-date shape. Amott further elaborates: “To me, it sounds like five musicians getting together in a room and making some hard rocking music and having a tremendous amount of fun doing so. It’s just a real pure band sound on the album album. No samples, no triggers or other modern day studio trickery were used. We avoided making it perfect, sucking the soul out of things. Only the spirit and emotion of the song was important”.

Tracks like the furious opener, “Wise As A Serpent”, the instant hit of “Turn The Tide”, the bluesy shuffle of “Sweet Magic Pain”, the epic re-interpretation of the classic / standard track “Dreamer” (by Jerry Zaremba) or the infectiously grooving “Kingmaker”, to name only but a few reference songs on this truly compact and entertaining effort, will take you on a wonderful musical ride and is likely to leave you, yeah, begging for more…