SABOTAGE - URMINNES HÄVD (LP, NONKONFORM MEDIA, 2024)

 

 Stockholm’s Sabotage is easily my favorite Swedish Oi! band currently active. Especially in the second half of the 2010’s the band cranked out one killer release after another, all recently collected on the “Vedergällning” double CD (which I reviewed a couple of months prior). But now, after more than a decade of killer singles, EP’s and split releases it’s finally time for the band’s first ever full-length album - “Urminnes Hävd”!

Released by Nonkonform Media, the highly anticipated album contains a total of nine anthems and basically is everything you’d expect from Sabotage… and more! The Swedes really outdid themselves on “Urminnes Hävd” by delivering a hard-hitting record full of power, grit and killer melodies that instantly grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go until the final blow! I’m not sure why it took more than ten years to finally release a full-length, but believe me when I say it was 100% worth the wait!

Everything literally comes together on “Urminnes Hävd”. The production and final mix combined with the band’s style and sound all blend into a series of brilliant songs that I can listen to over and over again! Now I am pretty sure that I wrote several times before that “this is how I like my Oi! music best”, but Sabotage truly sounds like how I like my Oi! music best! It’s delivered with perfection on songs like “Bättre Sent Än Aldrig”, “Lydig Slav”, “Farväl Och Tack” (saxophone included!), “Slödder”, “Gryning” (currently my personal favorite) and “Som En Man”, making it one of my favorite releases of 2025 (though it was actually released at the end of 2024, but sshhh)!

Sabotage definitely raised the bar and not just for themselves. If I am going to do a yearlist again at the end of this year “Urminnes Hävd” is definitely going to be on it and it’s up to the “competition” to define on which spot it will end up. Sabotage isn’t just my favorite Swedish Oi! band, it’s one of my favorite Oi! bands in general – period. An absolute must-have that is only available on vinyl (for now at least)!