Oscar Dronjak

Dans les années 1990, le heavy metal était moribond. C’est alors que le groupe HammerFall est arrivé avec un premier album qui a fait date et ressuscité un genre un peu trop vite enterré. Les Suédois restent les défenseurs d’un heavy metal pur et dur, laissant d’autres formations sonder d’autres méandres artistiques. Et c’est très bien comme ça !

Live concert footage and interviews recorded at the German heavy metal festival Wacken in 2001 featuring interviews and live performances from the likes of Motorhead, Saxon, Doro, Hammerfall, Grave Digger and Rose Tattoo, among others.

Sweden is currently one of the world's largest producers of heavy metal. Super Stars like Europe and Yngwie Malmsteen have shown the way to the big stages, while bands like Candlemass and Bathory established entirely new genres. This is the story of the personalities that made ​​the Swedish hard rock and metal scene to what it is today. A fascinating, moving and humorous story about how Sweden became a world nation in one of the strongest and most popular cultural phenomena ever, full of eyewitness accounts, anecdotes and, of course, a whole lot of metal!

Seldom has a relatively young band such as Hammerfall had so much influence on the metal scene. The Swedish heavy metallers have had their ups and downs, but their 15 year old legacy is packed with great albums and songs many consider modern-day heavy metal anthems. Gates of Dalhalla is the band’s second live album, recorded during a very special show in their homeland.

Swedish hard rock took its first big step abroad in the early 80s, when a young Yngwie Malmsteen sent a demo cassette across the Atlantic and became a guitar god overnight. Now Swedish hard rock bands perform all over the world on the biggest stages. This is the story of how Swedish hard rock became an export success.