Each week I am going to write a short (under 200 word) review for an album from my collection chosen at random by iTunes. You can expect anything from Slayer to Salmonella Dub to (Ravi) Shankar and that is all part of the fun. Enjoy.
I didn't have time to upload this review last week so you are getting a two-fer.
Week 12: Solace – A.D. (2010)
Country: USA / Heavy Metal, Stoner Rock, Hard Rock
Solace’s brand of heavy metal-cum-stoner rock is loud, unapologetic, and bristling with attitude. Not all metal has to overwhelm the senses and punish the listener; it has to draw them in. The band does this with wonderfully constructed melodic passages - not dissimilar to Metallica or even Tool – to break up the slabs of killer riffage. These make the number of 7-minute plus songs not overstay their welcome and give the album some much needed texture. ‘Six Year Train Wreck’ sounds like an ideal mashup of Wolfmother, Kyuss, and Black Sabbath and ‘Skull of a Head of a Man’ is a hardcore inferno. Classic hard rock – from Deep Purple to Alice in Chains - is a major touchstone in their approach to guitar assaults as it is for kindred spirits Mastodon and Baroness. Ultimately, A.D. doesn’t reinventing the wheel of prog-minded thrash metal. It does however use it to craft a fun and rocking album and that is plenty good enough.
Rating: B
For Fans of: Mastodon, Black Sabbath, Kyuss
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