Customer Reviews

New Dark Age

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A great mix of doom and medievil sounds. This album blew me away!!

Solstice's (not to be confused with the German death band of same name) first album, 'Lamentations', was an excellent doom metal album done in the clean, classy style of Messiah-era CANDLEMASS and SOLITUDE AETURNUS. With NDA, the band forged their own identity, keeping their clean-vocaled doomy roots but infusing a sense of grandeur into the songwriting that gives the songs an air of barbarian glory- almost celtic at times. Combined with the proud-yet-mournful lyrics, the music gives a sense of an outnumbered army preparing to take the field of battle on some long-forgotten moor. Some folk influences are also skillfully woven in without making the music feel hokey in any way. The riffs are HUGE (see openings of 'cimmerian codex' and 'hammer of damnation' for prime examples) and the music chugs along at a solid pace.
The best tracks are loaded on the front half of the disc, with the second having more short instrumental/accoustic parts, which makes it less exciting that the first four numbers. Overall it's a great album with a very unique identity, and how many metal albums can you say that about in recent years? Damn few. There's also a good EP, but sadly lineup instability brought an end to the group before another album could be recorded to follow up this new dark masterpiece

Now, this release comes with a playing time of 66 minutes blowing your ears away with pure epic doom (old SA-style!!!). Sound files as soon as possible at my web-site!!!

Probably the best doom release in the past 5 years! Could they have possibly topped the intro to "Lamentations"?? can we say hell yes! New Dark Age begins with the ultimate build up then explodes into "The Sleeping Tyrant" , [...] awesome riff. This entire song is a classic, every part rules. The songs just keep coming ..."Cimmerian Codex" has one of the best riffs on the whole album as well as probably one of the best doom riffs ever...to know what I am talking about just listen to "5:33" in that song. There is even some cool celtic/classical guitar passages as well. Forwarding to the final tune,"New Dark Age II", this is a total slow "Vitus" worship song. With this release I can only see progression in this band. I look forward to their next effort.

This album is total Solitude Aeturnus worship, but that is a good thing! Actually, Solstice do have their own sound and craft some extremely memorable and poignant melodies. I don't give very many 5's, but Solstice have earned it with their utterly majestic riffs, especially on "Cimmerian Codex," "Hammer of Damnation," and "Cromlech." My two complaints are that the vocals are occasionally inconsistent, maybe even a bit out of tune--some more time spent on production would have helped, and that the lyrics are sometimes unnecessarily obscure. That aside, this is great doom metal, and beyond that, it conjures an unparalleled atmosphere of pre-Conquest Saxon England. This is music for the ancient heptarchy. Just look at the song titles: "Alchemiculte," "The Anguine Rose," "Blackthorne." Wonderful!

Album?!? My apologies,old habits die hard(ahem...)

Anyway,heres another great example of "nobodys reviewed this yet?!!?".
For points of reference,think Man-O-War by way of Bathory(or vice versa?) coupled with Iron Maiden harmonic aspirations.

Slower to mid tempo METAL.Great pagan lyrics,great music,great everything.Ive seen this band lumped into the Doom scene,and I wanted to point out the aforementioned references,as Candlemass/St.Vitus/Trouble/etc..ths is not.

In any event,this is a KILLER release!An undiscovered classic