SOLUTION .45 - review added 13th April 2010
Album Review: For Aeons Past (2010)
For fans of: Heavy Metal... and a lot more besides...
Every so often a band comes along that does thing completely differently from the norm. I'm not saying that Solution .45 have created an entire new genre here, but they have put a clever slant on the land of modern heavy metal. The result is bordering on rather splendid.
Formed in late 2007, with an 8-track demo produced by Tomas "Plec" Johansson (Unmoored, Scar Symmetry) in 2008, Solution .45 is currently Christian Älvestam on vocals, Jani Stefanovic and Tom Gardiner on guitar, Rolf Pilve on drums, and Anders Edlund on bass. For Aeons Past sees the band working with “Plec” once again, and taking artwork from the skilled hands of Pär Olofsson (Immortal, Exodus, The Faceless)
The sound takes huge chunks from the death metal handbook and makes it both brutally heavily and ridiculously accessible. The vocals mix demonic howls liberally with melodic and melancholic clean singing. The result is often complex and breathtaking, and comes across like a stupendously powerful masculine-version of Within Temptation...crossed with Testament. The instruments are beautifully played and have a tone you could die for. In fact, turn your speakers up loud enough there's a good chance they'll have a go. This really is a very LOUD record!
Best moments are many and varied throughout. The deathly maulings of 'Through Night - Kingdomed Gates', the thrashy subtleties of the title track, and the mystique of 'Wirethrone' are great, but they pale next to the staggering sounds of 'Lethean Tears'. It's an epic symphonic power ballad that's so vast you could land a starship on it. Okay, Christian Älvestam does seem to keep singing about "a can of worms" which doesn't really fit into normal slow-song territory, but lyrical anomalies aside it's a phenomenal track.
Overall For Aeons Past is a stunning debut from Solution .45. It doesn't have huge numbers of big anthemic stand-out tracks, but as a whole it's approaching genius. That, to us, is a good thing...
Check out... 'Lethean Tears', of course.
Track List:
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 Embered Fields Adust
09. Into Shadow
10. Clandestinity Now
Label: AFM Records
Artist's website(s): MySpace
