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The profile · researched 12 October 2026
Eleine, Landskrona's self-released hard case, bet everything on a 31-date autumn and a December album
A Swedish metal band that started as a record label's phone call in 2011 has spent fourteen years hardening its sound and shedding members; it is now mid-way through the biggest headline tour it has ever booked, with a fifth album, The Water Taste of Blood, due on its own label on 4 December 2026.
A label's phone call, a port town, and a slow start
Eleine's beginning is documented as an approach rather than a formation. In 2011 the chief executive of Cardiac Records contacted the singer Madeleine Liljestam; the guitarist Rikard Ekberg came in during 2012, which is the year the band dates itself from, in Landskrona on the Skåne coast. A rhythm section and a keyboard player followed in 2013 — the drummer David Eriksson, the keyboard player Sebastian Berglund and the bassist Andreas Mårtensson — and the first single, "Gathering Storm", appeared in April 2014. "Land Beyond Sanity" followed in March 2015, and the self-titled debut album in April of the same year.
The split from Cardiac came in 2016, with the single "Break Take Live" arriving that June. In 2017 the band set up its own imprint, Algoth Records, working with Black Lodge Records, issued "Hell Moon" in September and went on the road with W.A.S.P. That was the first of a run of support slots that over the following years also took in Arch Enemy, Kamelot, Pain and Sonata Arctica — a decade of learning the circuit from the opening slot rather than the top of the bill.
Four albums, two EPs, and a steady hardening
Until the End, released in February 2018, reached number 22 on the Swedish albums chart and remains the band's highest placing. The guitarist Ludwig Dante was added in May 2018; by September both Eriksson and Mårtensson had left. The EP All Shall Burn, issued on 22 November 2019, reached number 13. Dancing in Hell, the third album, came out on 27 November 2020 and reached number 60 — a record made and released into a year with no touring behind it.
Eleine signed to Atomic Fire Records in January 2022, released the stripped-back EP Acoustic in Hell on 14 October that year, and delivered the fourth album, We Shall Remain, on 14 July 2023. Critical response divided along a clear line. Angry Metal Guy scored it 2.5 out of 5, calling the front half predictable with weak choruses while rating the final four tracks as the strongest writing and singing the band had put on record. Elsewhere the album was received as dark and gritty, carrying the nastiest riffs they had written, with reviewers repeatedly noting that for a band filed under symphonic metal the keyboards are sparse: the guitars and the rhythm section do the work. Victor Jonasson, who had been playing with them, was confirmed as a permanent guitarist in October 2023.
February 2025, and a line drawn in public
On 14 February 2025 the band announced the immediate departure of the drummer Jesper Sunnhagen and the bassist Filip Stålberg, who had only been announced as bassist in January 2023. The reason given was that the pair had broken one of the most important parts of the band member contract by acting inappropriately towards fans. Liljestam and Ekberg said simply that they put their fans first. No further detail was disclosed, and none has been since.
The founders also said replacements were already secured, and the tour that began on 2 April went ahead. The practical effect was to reduce Eleine to a three-piece core of Liljestam, Ekberg and Jonasson with hired players behind them, which is how the band has operated on stage since. The release that followed was a bridge rather than a statement: the EP We Stand United, announced on 12 June 2025, whose title track has since become a fixed late-set moment.
The Water Taste of Blood
The fifth studio album was announced on 1 August 2026 alongside the single "Watch As We Rise". It is due on 4 December 2026 through Algoth Records with distribution by Sound Pollution — self-released again, after one album for Atomic Fire. The band describes the record as pulling in 1990s groove metal and thrash riffing, with lyrics about betrayal, deception and the isolating weight of recognising manipulation while it is happening.
The singles have been spaced out across the year rather than dumped in a pre-release month: "Empire of Lies" on 10 May 2026, "Watch As We Rise" on 1 August, then "Hell Remains", "We March", "Liars Linger" and, on 8 October 2026, "Ich Sehe Dich" with a video. The last of those builds melodic verses into blunt, chugging riffing and resolves on a three-word German chorus. The band's framing of it was direct: "Have you ever wanted to say 'I see you' straight to the face of someone who tries to hurt you, or others, through spreading lies? 'Ich Sehe Dich' is about that exact moment." It is not a one-off experiment either — a second German-titled song, "War das alles", is also in the current set.
The biggest run they have booked
The tour was announced on 3 March 2026 and runs from 8 October to 8 November. It was announced as 28 shows across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland, and has since been billed at 31 shows in 13 countries, finishing with an album release show at Mejeriet in Lund on 5 December. Rexoria is main support, with Liv Sin also on the bill. Liljestam and Ekberg put the reasoning plainly when it was announced: after the success of the last two headline tours they were able to do it again, but bigger, with expanded production and new songs.
The six UK dates include the Underworld in Camden on 13 October 2026 — doors at 7pm, curfew 11pm, 14-plus, tickets £30 plus booking fee — Rebellion in Manchester on 15 October, and stops in Glasgow and Birmingham. The scale of the step up is worth measuring against where they were two years ago: when Eleine headlined the Asylum in Birmingham on 20 October 2024 with Ignea supporting, Distorted Sound scored the show 8 out of 10 but reported the room only half full. Moving to a three-band package in larger clubs is a wager on the fanbase having grown since, and the band has chosen to carry six unreleased songs into those rooms rather than wait for the record.
The show, now
A 2026 headline show is a three-band bill built to a hard curfew — the Camden date on 13 October has doors at 7pm and the lights up at 11pm, with Liv Sin opening and Rexoria in main support — so Eleine's own set is tight rather than sprawling. At DVG Club in Kortrijk on 11 October 2026 they played fifteen items: the taped intro "Towards the Fields", then "Enemies", "Never Forget", "Ava of Death", "Empire of Lies", "Liars Linger", "Dancing in Hell", "As I Breathe", "Watch as We Rise", "We March", "War das alles", "Ich sehe dich", "Where Your Rotting Corpse Lie", "We Stand United" and "We Shall Remain", with no encore. Six of those are from the unreleased album, which is an unusually heavy load of untested material for a club tour, and the older songs that survive the cut lean towards the heavier end of the catalogue rather than the symphonic one. The band has promised a larger production than its two previous headline runs, and the setlist shape — taped orchestral intro, new songs front-loaded into the middle, the two anthems last — is consistent across the current dates. On the evidence of the last documented headline show, the Asylum in Birmingham on 20 October 2024, the draw is Liljestam's crowd work set against Ekberg's growled counter-vocal, with each player given a spotlight rather than everything pointed at the singer; Distorted Sound gave that night 8 out of 10 and noted a committed crowd in a half-full room.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · chaoszine.net · chaoszine.net · distortedsoundmag.com · distortedsoundmag.com · setlist.fm · setlist.fm · femmetal.rocks
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Rincewind271 · CC BY-SA 4.0
