Mezzrow announce Alvaro “Alvis” Svanerö as their new drummer!

With their latest studio album “Summon Thy Demons”, the Swedish Thrash Metal force MEZZROW have returned after more than 30 years with a real bang. A flawless thrash metal monster, bursting with razor-sharp riffs and joy of playing.

Earlier this week, MEZZROW announced the departure of their drummer Jon Skäre and welcome Alvaro “Alvis” Svanerö as a new member.

“Due to Jon Skäre’s busy schedule and the fact that he can’t put the time and effort he’d like into Mezzrow, he has decided to part way with the band. There’s no hard feelings about this and we all respect his decision. Both Jon himself and the band are mighty proud of the drumming on “Summon Thy Demons” and we wish Jon all the best in his future adventures with Hulkoff and other projects”

Alvaro “Alvis” Svanerö, who names DEATH, MESHUGGAH and PARADISE LOST as his main influences, already made his debut at the “Keep It True” festival recently. He adds:

“After many years of drumming with melodic metalers Imperial Domain, doing tons of gigs with the all round band PlayBoys backing up major Swedish artists and doing session work for Born To Die, ThirdStorm, Sarcasm among others, the question of becoming the new drummer for my old heroes Mezzrow appeared! I know a couple of the guys before and when they asked me to do some drumming it was of course, YES! It is extremely fun to play thrash metal again! I was a big fan of the band back in the days when I was a teenager, so I’m very glad and proud to be part of this great band! Hope to see you on the road!”

On 20 April 2023, one day before the release of the new studio album, MEZZROW played a brilliant show at the legendary “Keep It True” festival in Lauda-Königshofen and offered four tracks each from “Summon Thy Demons” and from their first album “Then Came The Killing” from 1990, at their first German gig ever.

“A boyhood dream is about to come true for all of us in the band! Everyone involved in any form of music wants to release a live album at some point during their career. Now we will…thanks to our record company and the one and only Keep It True-festival”, comments bass player Conny Welén.

“Indeed, the band around founding member Uffe Pettersson, who is in great shape, has one of the thrash albums of the hour in their luggage, at their German premiere with their comeback work “Summon Thy Demons”, which is fatly underlined by the grooving starter “King Of The Infinite Void” as well as three other new tracks. The old songs from the debut, such as “Then Came The Killing”, “Ancient Terror” and the final “Frozen Soul”, are also official testament-category rock and free of any age spots,” says Lars Schuckar in the DEAF FOREVER live review.  

The 40-minute live set is now available for pre-order as a one-off in a limited 300 copy vinyl edition (white/black marbled) incl. insert and 180-gram vinyl. It is only available at selected metal mailorder shops, as well as on the upcoming live shows of the band. “Keep It True – Live” will be released on October 27th, 2023.

You can pre-order “Keep It True – Live” here: https://lnk.to/MezzrowKeepItTrueLive

MEZZROW live:
28/10 Stockholm – Thrash Bash at Stadsteatern, with Witchery, FKÜ and Sarcator.
04/11 Sundsvall – Pipeline Club, with Dark Reflection and Mortalicum
11/11 Umeå – House of Metal Festival, with Tribulation, The Crown, Eclipse and many more

MEZZROW built themselves a name in the thrash metal scene during the late eighties with their critically acclaimed demo tapes, “Frozen Soul” and “Cross of Tormention”. In 1990 they released their classic debut album “Then Came the Killing” through Active Records, a subsidiary of Music for Nations. The album is still today considered as one of the best, if not the best, thrash metal releases from Sweden and Scandinavia. This classic album was re-mastered together with all their demos, and released through Hammerheart Records in May 2022.

During 2021 MEZZROW rose from the ashes, when bass player Conny Welén (ex-Hexenhaus) and singer Uffe Pettersson (ex-Rosicrucian) decided to make a new mark in the thrash metal world of today and have together with new guitarists Magnus Söderman (Nightrage) and Ronnie Björnström (ex-Defiatory, ex-Aeon) written new killer songs, which have pure thrash metal top-class written all over them.

“Of course we have a bit of a new and updated sound, more mature and dark, but it’s still old school thrash metal from the Bay Area that lays the foundation. We refuse to downtune the guitars and you can definitely hear what Uffe sings! Some of the songs are actually a bit melodic, but in a thrashy kind of way. So don’t worry, we don’t do any ballads”, comments Conny Welén.

The line-up was completed by excellent drummer Jon Skäre (Defiatory, Hulkoff), who recently got replaced by Alvaro “Alvis” Svanerö.

“Summon Thy Demons” was produced by Conny Welén, Ronnie Björnström and Magnus Söderman. The excellent mixing and mastering were done by sound wizard Ronnie Björnström (Sorcerer, Meshuggah, 220 Volt a.o.). The artwork for the cover must of course suit the music and therefore it was handled by the great Pär Olofsson who, among tons of other cool covers, recently did the cover for Exodus latest release “Persona Non Grata”. Things fell into place, and the time is right for MEZZROW to leave another exclamation mark on the metal map.