Mia Karlsson – MetAle, Liseberg

As beer taps flowed and riffs echoed across Liseberg’s harbour area, the MetAle event brought together hard rock fans from near and far.

Among the distortion and denim, one set stood out for its unexpected intimacy. Mia Karlsson — better known to many as Mia Coldheart of Crucified Barbara — took a softer, more soulful route in her solo appearance.

Here is when metal met mellow!

From Metal to Mellow: Mia Karlsson Bridges Worlds at MetAle, Liseberg

When you hear the name Mia Karlsson, your mind might immediately drift to blazing guitars and road-tested grit — Mia Coldheart of Crucified Barbara, the all-female metal band that carved out a serious name for themselves in the heavy music scene of the 2000s. After years of absence from the spotlight, she’s re-emerged in projects like Donna Cannone and The Gems — both bands featuring ex-members of Thundermother, with The Gems even taking the stage the night prior.

But if you caught Mia’s solo set at this year’s MetAle event at Liseberg, you saw a very different side of the Stockholm-based musician — one that swapped distortion pedals for storytelling, and leaned more into raw emotion than sheer volume.

Taking the stage with bassist Johan Bergquist and drummer Pelle Åkerlind, and armed with just an acoustic guitar and a calm presence, Mia gently opened the evening with her own solo material. The contrast to her metal roots was striking — stripped-back, folk-inspired songs with a touch of Americana, offering a fresh glimpse into her musical DNA.

Mia Karlsson accompanied by Johan Bergquist on bass, and Pelle Åkerlind behind the drums.

“I don’t even know if this is the time and place for this kind of music,” Mia Karlsson said early on, glancing at the crowd with a half-apologetic smile. “But we’re all metalheads in the band, so we’ll move slightly towards rock as we go.”

And she did — but on her own terms.

One of the most memorable moments came about a third into the set, when Mia looked back on her first tour with Crucified Barbara, supporting industrial metal outfit Pain in 2005. “Twenty years later,” she laughed, “I never thought I’d play one of their songs like this.” What followed was a surprisingly tender acoustic cover of a Pain track — transformed into something haunting and almost fragile. Unexpected? Absolutely. But also disarmingly sincere.

As the set progressed, the dynamics gradually shifted. “Now we’re getting serious,” drummer Pelle Åkerlind joked as Mia swapped her small acoustic guitar for a much larger electric one. While she’s known for wielding a black Gibson Flying V in Crucified Barbara, tonight she opted for a more understated semi-hollow—likely a Gibson ES-335. The show edged gently into rockier territory without abandoning its introspective tone, and the trio never gave in to the urge to fully rock out.

Mia switched over to her electric guitar about halfway through the show.

Covers Rooted in Grunge

Her choice of covers played like a carefully curated mixtape of midtempo tracks—familiar within the rock community, yet far from standard crowd-pleasers. Audioslave’s Like a Stone and Alice in Chains’ Down in a Hole were delivered with emotional weight and quiet reverence, blurring the line between tribute and personal reinterpretation.

And that’s perhaps what made the performance so compelling: Mia didn’t try to out-metal a metal crowd. Instead, she invited us into her world, letting the music — soft, slow, heavy in its own right — speak for itself. The hour-long set felt more like a personal journey than a festival show, and by the end, she had taken the audience with her.

There’s something refreshing about an artist who dares to pivot — from thunderous riffs to acoustic vulnerability — without ever feeling like they’ve left anything behind. Mia Karlsson didn’t just play songs at MetAle. She shared memories, reshaped them, and built a bridge between past and present.

A full cover album, should it ever happen, feels like a natural next step — and we’d be first in line.

It was a joy to see Mia on stage again. And with Crucified Barbara now reunited, fans can look forward to catching both projects on the road this summer. The metal may be back — but so is the heart behind it!