Striker's debut album, No Bears on the Track, was simply a collection of the group's early demos, making 2005's
Spekulantsvinet the Swedish band's "proper" debut. However, this 21-track hardcore spazz-out is every bit as raw and dirty as the more primal early demos; artistic progression, in a case like this, just means the ability to play incrementally faster and louder. The lyrics are almost entirely in Swedish, which suggests an entertaining party game: slip
Spekulantsvinet onto the play list at your next hardcore soiree and see how long it takes for people to realize that it's not just the usual unintelligible English barking and shouting, but an actual foreign language. Lots of Scandinavian hardcore bands have trodden a similar path -- in fact, members of Striker have previously done time in the well-regarded and extremely similar
Rovsvett -- but the precision strafing of
Spekulantsvinet is so tightly controlled that the tightly wound fury of the band comes through despite the language barrier. ~ Stewart Mason