Why Europe Invited Tom Dalgety to Co-Write on Come This Madness

Europe

It starts with an orchestral intro, then a driving bass riff takes over. That is how “One On One” opens Come This Madness, Europe’s 12th studio album, which is out today on Silver Lining Music and Hell & Back Recordings.

It is the Swedish band’s first album in nine years, the follow-up to 2017’s Walk the Earth, and it was recorded at RMV Studio in Stockholm, the facility founded by Benny Andersson and Ludvig Andersson. The producer was Tom Dalgety, and his role went well beyond the desk.

A Producer Invited to Co-Write

Dalgety’s credits include Ghost, Rammstein, Pixies, The Cult and Opeth. According to Silver Lining Music, he became a true creative force on the album, deeply embedded in the band’s writing and recording and shaping its sound from the ground up.

Joey Tempest, the band’s founding member and frontman, called him “creative, musical and incredibly intuitive” and said he “really became a sixth member of the band during the writing and recording of this album.” “We even invited him to co-write on some of the songs,” Tempest said.

The time helped. In an interview with Sonic Perspectives, Tempest explained that the nine-year gap let the band approach this record differently. Bag of Bones, War of Kings and Walk the Earth had come together quickly. This time the band reworked demos, experimented with arrangements and let the songs develop naturally.

The first single shows how that worked. The label says “One On One” was written during a time of global stillness but developed over years, and Tempest has described the band staying with it from its demo stage until it became a classic hard rock track.

To finish the record, Europe turned to Mike Fraser, whose mixing credits include AC/DC, Van Halen, Metallica, The Cult and Loverboy. The lineup has Tempest on lead vocals, John Norum on guitars, John Levén on bass, Mic Michaeli on keyboards and Ian Haugland on drums.

Mic Michaeli’s Synthesizers Are Back

The biggest change is on keys. Sonic Perspectives, which scored the album 8.6, credits an expanded role for Michaeli, who has brought back some of the spacey synthesizer sounds to sit alongside the Hammond organ and symphonic parts he has leaned on over recent albums. The review argues that Europe have ended up closer than ever to their mid-1980s AOR sound, yet it never feels wholly like a feat of nostalgia.

Louder‘s Philip Wilding, reviewing for Classic Rock, heard a much steelier record than the one that made The Final Countdown a worldwide hit: harder and faster, with a Fraser mix that “glimmers like a fresh paint job on a classic car”. He compared Dalgety’s punchy production to Scorpions in their pomp and latter-day Whitesnake.

The synths are all over the opening run. “The Cult of Ignorance” starts on big synthesizers, as Metal Express Radio notes, before turning into a fast rock song with brutally honest lyrics. Sonic Perspectives hears synth work close to Stratovarius set against an AC/DC-meets-Led Zeppelin guitar display from Norum. Wilding hears the same song come rattling in, all elbows and attitude. The title track follows, which Sonic Perspectives calls Deep Purple-tinged, still packed with spacey keyboards and big chorus hooks.

John Norum Keeps It Heavy

Under the keyboards, the riffs are heavy. Sonic Perspectives describes a heavy, bluesy riff assault from Norum, with Levén and Haugland playing punchy, gritty and loose behind him.

“In a Different World” finds Norum channelling Ritchie Blackmore, according to that review, while “The Angels Must Have Flown” carries the darkest riff on the album. Wilding describes the latter as pure Europe bombast, a marching riff interwoven with a tricksy synth line, with Tempest sounding strangely like a young Ian Gillan.

The record ends on “Nothing Can Follow This”, which Louder hears as Deep Purple-like in tone, all stabbing strings and washes of keyboards, with Norum’s “elongated and elegant guitar solo” carrying it home. Metal Express Radio singles out “Takin’ It Back” as a driving song with a steady backbeat and a message about taking back control of your life.

“Scandinavian Eyes”, a longer song with a lofty atmospheric backdrop and some progressive trappings, is the one Sonic Perspectives picks as the best showcase of the five playing as a unit. Tempest has pointed out that Europe always had heavier and more progressive elements, even before The Final Countdown made them famous.

The Ballads and the Voice

The slower songs carry as much weight. “This Time of Year” is a power ballad built on piano and strings, and Wilding thinks it could have made it into A-ha’s live set, calling it a pitch-perfect rock-pop song full of regret and longing. “In the Absence of Grace”, about a minute and a half of piano and voice, runs straight into “The Angels Must Have Flown”.

Tempest’s voice is part of the story. Sonic Perspectives notes that his tenor has a slightly deeper tone than in the days of “Rock the Night” and “Superstitious” but has lost none of its thunder, and Louder calls his vocals pristine.

The lyrics look outward. Tempest has said “One On One” is less escapist than early Europe and reflects the times instead, and he told Sonic Perspectives that the title song explores the tension between disorder and control, mirroring the global mood he picked up while sitting with an acoustic guitar watching the news. Metal Express Radio hears themes of AI, the struggle to make ends meet and people pitted against each other over politics, with glimmers of hope in between.

The “One On One” video, made by Patric Ullaeus, stars the actor Peter Stormare, known for Fargo and The Big Lebowski. One thing is missing: “Hold Your Head Up”, the single Europe released in 2023 and dedicated to Tempest’s father, did not make the album, as Metal Express Radio points out.

Guest Voices From Ghost and Opeth

Two famous names turn up in the backing vocals. Tobias Forge of Ghost and Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth both sing on the record, which Wilding reads as a sign of Europe’s pedigree, though he adds that neither would easily overshadow Tempest. Dalgety has produced for both of their bands.

Forge’s appearance comes as he plans a break from the road: Rock Revival reported that he will step away from touring once Ghost’s current album cycle ends.

The packaging has pedigree too. The artwork is by Storm Studios, whose credits include Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Muse, and Metal Express Radio thinks the cover resembles the Scorpions’ 1982 album Blackout.

Come This Madness runs to 11 songs and about 41 minutes, on vinyl, CD and digital. The tracklist runs: “One on One”, “The Cult of Ignorance”, “Come This Madness”, “This Time of Year”, “In a Different World”, “Scandinavian Eyes”, “Takin’ It Back”, “In the Absence of Grace”, “The Angels Must Have Flown”, “The Devil’s Back” and “Nothing Can Follow This”.

The Final Countdown at Forty

The album lands roughly 40 years after The Final Countdown, the band’s third album and the record that took them around the world, as Sonic Perspectives notes. Since reuniting in 2003, starting with the dark and heavy turn of 2004’s Start From the Dark, Europe have built a bigger catalogue than they recorded in their original run.

The band are marking the anniversary on the road. The Final Countdown 40th Anniversary Tour opens at the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow on 30 September, followed by the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton on 2 October and the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London, on 3 October.

It then heads across the continent, taking in Arnhem, the Olympia in Paris, Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Lausanne, Zürich, Milan, Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin and Warsaw, before dates in Frederiksberg, Gothenburg, Stockholm on 24 October and Oslo on 26 October. November brings Malta Metal Weekend, Ostrava, Helsinki and Jyväskylä, and the run ends at the Unholy Winter Festival in Joensuu, Finland, on 28 November.

Tempest has said he thinks this might be one of the best records of the band’s career. Forty years on from The Final Countdown, the first reviews suggest he has a case.

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