Official fan listening session | Berlin | September 2026

This review was not written behind a desk.

Our studio for dissecting Imminence’s new album was a small bar in Berlin, where just under 100 people gathered to hear Axis Mundi for the first time — together, in the dark, surrounded by anticipation.

The album, the Swedish band’s sixth studio release, arrives officially on October 2. But for one night in Berlin, we were given the chance to step inside it before the rest of the world.

The venue had been transformed for the occasion: a dedicated sound system, exclusive merchandise, and roughly a dozen tables scattered throughout a dark and intimate space.

The crowd was diverse in age, gender, and style.

But there was one thing everyone seemed to understand.

For many people in that room, Imminence are not simply a metal band.

They are THE band.

And you could feel it.

There were nervous smiles before the music began. Excited glances. People quietly taking their seats as Alex Arnoldsson (guitar), Christian Höijer (bass), Harald Barret (guitar), and Eddie Berg (vocals and violin) stepped forward to introduce the album.

“This is our first official fan listening session, and we hope you enjoy the album as much as we enjoyed making it,” Eddie said, smiling from ear to ear.

Then they pressed play.

And the room disappeared.

Nobody was filming.

Nobody was talking.

Nobody was checking their phone.

Everyone was listening.

And Axis Mundi demands exactly that.

01. Twisting in the Wind

The journey begins with Twisting in the Wind: 50 seconds of seductive whispers slowly pulling you forward before everything suddenly breaks open.

It is an introduction built on emotional instability. A soul seems to tear itself apart, put itself back together, and then break again.

The room barely moved.

There is something remarkably exposed about opening an album this way. Rather than easing us into Axis Mundi, Imminence throws us directly into the storm.

The message is clear from the beginning:

If you are coming in, you are coming all the way in.

02. The Sword That Never Bends

Then comes a song we already know.

Melodic, direct, instantly memorable, and seemingly engineered for the kind of massive crowd singalong that will hit differently when thousands of voices are involved, The Sword That Never Bends changes the temperature of the room almost immediately.

People recognize it.

Heads come up.

The energy shifts.

And suddenly we get one of the first glimpses of how far Imminence are willing to stretch their sound.

The hooks are obvious without feeling cheap. The rhythm keeps moving. The song carries enough familiarity to pull you in while still pointing toward somewhere new.

Imminence are not asking permission to explore.

They are already doing it.

And, somehow, they make you want to follow.

03. Devil May Try

Devil May Try takes a completely different approach.

This is the kind of song that makes you sway without even realizing you are doing it.

Its melodic layers and vocal contrasts create an almost hypnotic push and pull, eventually crashing into a breakdown that refuses to let the tension settle.

By now, several people have their eyes closed.

Not because they are tired.

Because they are listening with their entire bodies.

The beauty of Devil May Try lies in how naturally Imminence move between softness and force.

They do not treat contrast as a gimmick.

They treat it as a language.

04. Crestfallen

And then comes the first real emotional gut punch.

Crestfallen begins almost naked, allowing the vulnerability in Eddie Berg’s voice to sit completely exposed before the violin enters and starts pulling the song somewhere deeper.

It settles somewhere beneath your ribs.

From there, the tension keeps building — painful, beautiful, strangely comforting.

This is Imminence at their most emotionally disarming.

Beauty and suffering are not opposites here.

They coexist.

And the dangerous part?

You want more.

Even when you already know it is going to hurt.

05. False Light

If Crestfallen exposes the wound, False Light pours gasoline over it.

Heavy riffs.

Precise screams.

A dynamic structure that lets Eddie move from melody to aggression without either side ever feeling forced.

It feels almost like the band turning toward the room and saying:

You thought that was all we had?

No.

This is us too.

Powerful.

Vulnerable.

Melodic.

Violent.

This is where the first serious headbanging begins around the room.

Message received.

06. If Not Now, When

And then they pull us straight back into the emotional abyss.

Imminence seem determined to keep changing the rules before we have time to adjust.

If Not Now, When is powerful in a completely different way.

There is something sensual about it. Something intimate.

You can almost picture Eddie singing with his eyes closed while the rest of the band builds around him, never overpowering the moment, simply giving it the space it needs to grow.

And then comes the ending.

Oh.

The piano and violin meet in a moment so soft and unexpectedly beautiful that it feels almost unfair after everything that came before it.

This is a song made for catharsis.

Not the kind you experience alone.

The kind thousands of people will eventually scream back at the stage together.

07. Didn’t Think About You (Lately)

Here, Axis Mundi changes language again.

Electronic textures creep into the production, creating a much more intimate atmosphere.

Eddie barely seems to be singing.

He sounds like he is confessing.

That distinction matters.

Because this is another side of Eddie Berg — the side that does not need to prove how powerful his screams can be.

Instead, he shows how much damage restraint can do.

Didn’t Think About You (Lately) feels like a late-night conversation you were never supposed to overhear.

It belongs in headphones.

Alone.

After midnight.

Preferably when you are not emotionally prepared for it.

And yes, preferably with a broken heart.

Or maybe with a healed one that still remembers exactly where the scars came from.

08. Leviathan

Then Imminence drag us into the deep.

Leviathan is darkness with teeth.

The screams sound as if they are coming from somewhere far below the surface, while softer vocals hover above them, creating a contrast that feels almost physically tangible.

The production here is extraordinary in its sense of architecture.

Nothing feels randomly placed.

Every layer seems to have a purpose.

One element becomes the foundation for the next, and the song keeps expanding until it becomes something much larger than its individual components.

When it ends, the room erupts.

For a few seconds, nobody seems quite ready to move on.

We have just been somewhere.

09. Shed Your Skin

And then, after throwing us into the abyss, Imminence leaves us there.

For a moment, Shed Your Skin feels almost disorienting.

An acoustic guitar opens the track.

After Leviathan, you might reasonably ask:

Are we really going here now?

Yes.

Absolutely.

This is probably the album’s most patient moment.

It does not demand your attention.

It earns it slowly.

The song expands rather than explodes, allowing its atmosphere to develop at its own pace. There is even a subtle progressive quality in the way it unfolds.

The reaction in the room is noticeably quieter.

But that does not make it weaker.

Some songs are built for the first listen.

Others are built to reveal themselves later.

Shed Your Skin feels like the latter.

10. Power Divine

Then Imminence decides we have been patient enough.

Power Divine hits immediately.

The riffs come in swinging, followed by a breakdown that sounds like someone stamped the Imminence logo directly onto it.

This is the band at their most physical.

You can already picture Eddie throwing himself across a stage.

You can picture Harald Barret moving with that unmistakable physicality that has become part of the band’s visual identity.

There is nothing complicated about what this song wants from you.

Turn it up.

Move.

Let it hit.

11. Exodus

And then we arrive at Exodus.

After everything we have just experienced, it is an intriguing choice for the final chapter.

It is heavy, but never suffocating.

It grooves.

It moves.

And most importantly, it goes somewhere.

After vulnerability, intimacy, pain, violence, and the abyss, Imminence do not leave us lying on the floor.

They get us back on our feet.

But they do not exactly lead us toward an exit.

Instead, they take us through the axis itself — the point of connection between different planes, between heaven, earth, and the underworld.

That is what makes Exodus such an effective closer.

It does not feel like the end of the journey.

It feels like the moment you decide to keep walking after everything you have survived.

Nothing is over.

It is only beginning.

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And so, these masters of modern metal demonstrate just how confidently they can move between extremes.

Visceral screams. Shattering whispers. Heaviness. Progressive expansion. Atmosphere. Layers of sound and sensation.

Nothing feels like an accidental detour.

The violin is never there simply for decoration. The electronics never feel like an afterthought. The cleans and screams do not represent two different identities.

Everything belongs to the same language.

And yes, throughout these eleven tracks, Eddie’s voice moves through almost every possible shade: epic, broken, seductive, intimate, restrained, and ferocious.

As a whole, the band builds a production filled with layers. Every instrument seems to occupy a specific space, and the songs feel constructed piece by piece until they become complete structures.

But perhaps the most important thing about Axis Mundi is its understanding of dynamics.

A breakdown hits harder after a whisper.

A scream hurts more after silence.

The violin takes on another dimension when it meets distortion.

And a quiet song can feel enormous after surviving another bout of sonic destruction.

Everything is explored. Everything is traversed.

But not as a proven formula or as a collection of random tricks.

There is direction.

There is intention.

And, above all, there are stories to tell.

With Axis Mundi, Imminence have built a new experience. They have opened a portal toward the direction they want to take, and over the course of eleven songs, they invite us to cross it with them.

Axis Mundi is an album you travel through.

And perhaps that is why, on that night in a small Berlin bar, fewer than 100 people remained silent for almost an hour.

We were not simply listening to Imminence’s new album.

We were entering their world.

And when Exodus ended, we still were not entirely sure we had found our way back out.

Axis Mundi will be released on October 2 via Sumerian Records.