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Solution .45: For aeons past
07/06/10 || Altmer
So this is Mr. Älvestam’s new band? The one he won’t tour with cos he didn’t with Scar Symmetry? This man is a part of a million projects right now, like Miseration, and The Few Against Many, and probably more that I haven’t thought of (doing guest vox on “The Lustrate Process” jumps to mind also now), but he does vocals for this band as well. Wikipedia describes this as a supergroup – which is false, since the only other guy I know from this is guitarist Stefanovic who played with some shit bands like Divinefire and also aforementioned Miseration.
Well, what we have here is basically a continuation of where Christian left off with his previous full-time band, Scar Symmetry – only now with slightly more prominent keys. There are a few odd guitar solos like the one on “Through night-kingdomed gates” but it’s mostly just picking up where that band left off. I know the band said it wasn’t supposed to be an SS clone, since the songs were ready before Christian came into the fold, but they pretty much are similar in style anyway, and the problem here is – it’s all good, I’m just not feeling any hit songs in the making from this album. The songs swing in general though – just no songs that make me think “oh, that’s a song I wanna put on again and again”. The ones that bring a smile to yer face when they come by on shuffle.
Some fucken good things are to be found on this album though – Alvestam’s vocals are fucken A-league. This man has a voice of gold and he uses it to the fullest extent, making hearing his shit a fucken joy. His growl is excellent and meaty and his clean vocals are poppy and saccharine enough to make those choruses catchy, but not cheesy enough for me to hate them. Shit, this is how you do vocals. That alone bumps this album into the “sufficient releases from 2010” category. (For any of you wondering what that means – it means it will get a 6 or higher). Nice stuff.
The bad things are songs like “Lethean Tears”. Fucken power ballads should be forbidden by now. You know, the kind of song that starts off slowly with swelling keys, and hits stride halfway, with incredibly cheesy lyrics (and saccharine vocals too). It’s been done to death and I rather hear the band thrashing and rocking it out, cos the riffs on this album (apart from that song) are meaty and excellent. They even have good production on those guitars too. Amazing. Now don’t waste it on shit “emotional” power ballads. This kind of stuff is what makes melodic bands suck fucken big time – the amount of shit cheese they manage to include on each and every album while rocking it out on all of the others. This song is no different and it doesn’t belong on here. The climax isn’t even good so that makes it even more of a disgrace. Terrible.
Apart from that weak track, most of this is quite solid. Bonus points for the appearance of Mikael Stanne on “Bladed Vaults”. Not that it is necessary because Chrille is fantastic as is, but Stanne is one of my favourite vocalists and also did the lyrics for this album apparently – always good to see talented people put out the goods. So any Dark Tranquillity fans that want more – give this a spin, you’ll like that track.
Even though some awesome people are involved – Stanne, Älvestam – this album still feels like a slight letdown to me. It’s good, but it’s not great, much like many albums that have come out this year. It’s competent, quality, average, solid in each and every aspect, from the musicianship to the lyrics to the actual arrangements, but I think they need a couple more “hit songs” with the super catchy hooks that Scar Symmetry used to be able to cook up so well before they will completely sit right with me. But at least they don’t suck. Not that that wasn’t expected because of the talent involved here.
Recommendation: Write a song like “The Path of Least Resistance” by Scar Symmetry. If you have a bunch of songs like that, you couldn’t go wrong with this band.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: AFM Records
- Website: Solution .45 MySpace
- Band
- Christian Älvestam: vocals
- Tom Gardiner: guitars
- Jani Stefanovic: guitars
- Anders Edlund: bass
- Rolf Pilve: drums
- Mikko Härkin (guest): keyboards
- Mikael Stanne (guest): backing vocals, lyrics
- Tracklist
- 01. The Close Beyond
- 02. Gravitational Lensing
- 03. Through Night-Kingdomed Gates
- 04. For Aeons Past
- 05. Lethean Tears
- 06. Bladed Vaults
- 07. Wirethrone
- 08. On Embred Fields Adust
- 09. Into Shadow
- 10. Clandestinity Now
- 11. Spirit Side Dreaming (Japanese bonus track)
