Sol Sistere - S/T


As someone who likes melody in my metal, I admit that it's tricky line to walk to get it right. If metal is, typically, trying to have some kind of edge or aggression to it, too much melody potentially blunts the impact. Particularly in something like black metal, where the lineage of the subgenre can be traced back to a desire for an uncompromising sonic rawness, the endless chatter about whether or not this-or-that (too) melodic black metal band is really black metal is a testament to how challenging it can be to maintain the central appeal of the sound while also writing songs awash in melody. 

All this to say that Sol Sistere's new self-titled album is a rager.  

Sol Sistere are an atmospheric black metal band from Santiago, Chile that remind me of bands like Numenorean, Violet Cold, or Uada. They have that really nice shimmering-while-still-noisy quality that the best bands of this genre have (there are literally two songs on the album called "The Shimmer pt I" and "The Shimmer pt II," as if to put an exclamation point on it), with long stretches of post-rock-like ambience giving way to walls of blast beats and blurry riffage. Through it all, though, Sol Sistere manage to stuff each song to the brim with catchy part after catchy part, making for an incredibly engaging listen, even as the songs stretch to eight and ten minutes long. 

If you like any of the bands I compared them to, this is some really top-notch work, and I look forward to whatever they wind up doing next.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Hair is a Rat's Nest - The Longing Machine

Image
I have a soft spot in my heart for one-song albums. I've never done one myself, but I always respect the audacity and ambition that goes into trying to hold a listener's attention through a single, long, uninterrupted track.  My Hair is a Rat's Nest, a largely one-person "screamo" (scare quotes because I have never liked that term) band, fills "The Longing Machine" with more than enough interesting twists and turns to make the one, nearly 25 minute long, song that composes the album interesting throughout.  An almost shockingly broad array of influences seem to weave their way through the song. It starts out with some classically dissonant 90s style screamy hardcore, with angular riffs, busy drumming, and shrieked vocals. But, as the minutes click on, the song adds layer upon layer, bringing in lush atmosphere and textures to complement the more traditionally aggressive approach of its first few minutes. By the end of the track, My Hair is a Rat's Ne...
Read more

Djunah - Femina Furens

Image
A lot of our understandings of decades or generations are deeply filtered through media. So how we represent and remember the 1980s, for example, is as much about how the 80s looked via Blade Runner as it is about actual representations of that decade. The 80s was ringer t-shirts, acid washed jeans, and moppy hair as much as it was synths and neon, and yet those sounds and images have become indelibly imprinted on our understanding of that time period because of the media we associate with the 80s.  I'm actually old enough to remember the 1990s. As such, I’m fully authorized to say that Djunah is a band that fully captures what I remember as being exciting about that time of period of music more than almost any current band.  Let me explain.  Djunah are a sludgy, two-piece post-metal band from Chicago whose new album, Femina Furens, is an early contender for my favorite album of the year. The songs are a mixture of fist pumping, driving, anthemic rock (Seven Winds of Sekh...
Read more