 |
| ||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
| - | |||||||||||||||
| Review | |||||||||||||||
|
Here we go again! Solution .45 is the new Melodic Death Metal act supergroup featuring the newly proclaimed Metal mastermind (thanks to him time in Scar Symmetry) Christian Älvestam on vocals, as well as members of Miseration, Incapacity and Essence of Sorrow, among other bands. Well, Christian is back for another go at the Melodic Death Metal scene by creating the exact same music he left in the first place for whatever speculated reason of your choice. Yep, For Aeons Past essentially picks up where the last Scar Symmetry album left off, except this time it's not about the future or machines, but this time about philisophical ideals, death, and everything in between. The only difference between these two acts right now, aside the lyrical themes obviously, which we'll get back to shortly, would be the vocals. Yes, Christian brings his typical growling and screaming game into the mix on For Aeons Past, as well as a harsher vocal style that appears during "Bladed Vaults" (which also has one of the most powerful vocal performances of the album as well), but it seems that it's geared more towards singing this time around. Outside that, nothing else has really seemed to change. The music is still as intense as usual with the once in a while lighter track thrown in, such as "Through Night - Kingdom Gates" and the more power ballad track "Lethean Tears". As far as the lyrics on the album go, they were actually not composed by the band. The lyrics to For Aeons Past were actually composed by Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity, which really adds a whole other layer of solidity to this album as these lyrics are superior and more provoking then those on any Scar Symmetry release, as well as really suit the overall atmosphere some of the tracks have. "Gravitational Lensing" is proof of this, utilizing lyrics that really feed off the song's somewhat uplifting and spiritual music. The real shining track off this release would be the first CD single off the album called "Clandestinity Now", a nearly sixteen minute track that, for the most part, is nothing but solid continuous music right from the start. Around ten and a half minutes into the song, everything just stops and you're given some keyboard ambience before greeted with acoustic guitars and the feel of an old Hard Rock power ballad. Had this section been omitted, the song could have been something really special. Instead, the way it's set up feels like it's two songs just slapped together. This doesn't mean it's bad or anything of the sort, in fact it's a very enjoyable track if you approach it as simply two songs put together without anything to break them apart. The only time you will lose your interest in the song will be around that ten and a half minute mark where the song suddenly changes pace completely as it seems to take forever to build up, though never change back into the heavier material that came before, only picking up speed a little bit at a time, leaving much of this track to keep you listening without even a momentary thought to skip back to the first track of the album. But for all the great, hard hitting tracks this album has to offer, it's not prone to some negative aspects as well. The first one you come across is really the biggest one of all, and may lead people to wonder if the editing was done just for that song, or if there is some sort of vocal processing done through most tracks on the album. If you pay attention to the clean singing in "Lethean Tears", you can actually hear a slight jump, almost as if the vocals are being performed through some sort of Electronica distortion, but they simply are not. While this doesn't really affect the song and meerly becomes more of a slight annoyance, it's just something that will make listeners think as well. Aside that, you have the lighter track "Into Show" which tries to create a rather haunting sound during the lighter verses before it jumps into a much harder chorus. While this is a decent track, it's definitely not one of it's strong points, leaving the listener wanting more and inevitably causing a loss of interest in the track after a few spins. For Aeon's Past is a solid album by Solution .45 that will surely fill the hole in the hearts of those who greatly miss the original Scar Symmetry releases. While this release does feel much lighter, all the traditional aspects of that material is present again, and in many ways better. The lyrics are more powerful, the music is as strong, and the vocals are tighter though more along the lines of the clean singing. This highly anticipated album really does live up to it's hype for a debut album, and leaves the listeners with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that future releases will only grow and enhance what is presented here. |
|||||||||||||||
| - | |
 |
|