Album Review: Hardcore Superstar “Abrakadabra” (2022)

Hardcore Superstar are back on the scene with “Abrakadabra” which comes packed with tracks that will make you jump out of your chair and shake your head

Four years without anything new from one of my favorite bands, Hardcore Superstar, and especially the three months that have passed since they released the appetizer of the album, the EP Forever And A Day, is too long. But as everything happens, finally, the new work of the Swedes, Abrakadabra, is now available, and as they say, the wait was worth it.

I do not know if they return to those sounds with which they dazzled me, that sleazy that I missed so much and that they achieved with their albums Hardcore Superstar, 2005, and Dreaming In a Casket, 2007, but almost. In Abrakadabra they manage to combine that stratospheric sound, so dirty, catchy, and with so much hook, of those years, with those more commercial sounds, more of a groupie with which they delighted us today. For everything and with that, they manage to make Abrakadabra a rounded work, and one of the best they have done lately.

Everything in this album is more than studied, well, they have always done it, it is not new now. Behind those intentions of wanting to present a certain improvisation, behind that dirt, a disorder that sleazy presents, when listening to Abrakadabra you realize, instantly, that there is a lot of work. From the first chord with which the album is presented, slow, with a sense of suspense, to those badass choruses, which seem not rehearsed at all, and going through those devilish rhythms, catchy melodies to the maximum, a singer with a brutal punch, and Adde in his line, for me he is still one of the best drummers today, and a Zino better than ever, in which there are guitars of all kinds, from pure melodies to virtuoso notes, you see that there is quality, creativity, professionalism.

Abrakadabra is a hard-hitting, dirty, fun album in which Vic Zino’s riffs, when combined as they are with Adde Andreasson’s drums, plus the intensity that they present together with the good, although sometimes with little presence of Martin Sandvik, bassist, and the unmistakable and great Joakim “Jocke” Berg, singer, makes Hardcore Superstar have returned to 2005.

Crank up your speakers, get a good beer out of the fridge, hit play, and get ready to shake your head like you haven’t done in a while. No o

Review by The Planet Of The Ape