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Current mood:  excited
SOLENOID – “Solenoid” CD ’08 / ’09 (Buzzville, Bel) – Does anybody else ever do this? You’re poking around on the ‘net and all the sudden you find yourself face-to-face with something real cool-looking. Ok, ok…not that cool-looking…this is just an R-rated site, after all. No, here’s what happened. I’m bouncing around, scoping out bands and lo & behold, I find myself staring at a picture of 2 hairy dudes playing Flying V’s. Oh, there were other people in the band but that’s the image that jumped out at me. You see, over the years I’ve learned one thing: when a metal band’s got tough-looking guys with lots of hair, beards & pointy guitars, you pay attention. Accept, Mastodon, Bible Of The Devil…you get my point. So, I stopped in my tracks & took a look around. Everything looked right: all the influences, the comments and the link: “U.S. Distribution.” How long you think it took me to follow that bad boy? And of course, after selecting 2-day shipping, I realized it was Thursday & UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays. Shit. So you do it too? You order something you think might be bad-assed and then torture yourself until it comes? “Tomorrow it’ll be tomorrow,” “What if it was really out-of-stock?,” “What if it sucks?” And then you finally click “tracking” and it says “Out for delivery.” Yes! Now all that’s left is to go outside and get that little brown package off the porch…
I put this CD in, as I have so many times in the past, always fearing the worst…mediocrity. In a lot of ways, if something is a living piece of shit, it makes it easier to take. At least that can be the fodder for a funny review. But, when the first chords of “Out In The Cold” came roaring out of the speakers, I had a fucking feeling. Then, “Down The Dream” followed and the feeling grew strong enough to place sharp metallic fingers around my neck and begin to squeeze firmly. When something sounds like vintage Motorhead and ups the ante with lead guitar work like Robbo supplied in “Another Perfect Day,” I’m all ears. Then comes “Her Peace” and I’m all ears, heart, soul and gonads. This is just a superb, otherworldly song that goes to every visceral part of the human metaller’s body and ravages it with pure greatness. If you can imagine a perfect combination of yeah, Motorhead, but also a tad of Dillinger Escape Plan, Trouble and even Austrian obscurity gurus, U8 (not kidding, motherfrickers!) you’re on the damn trail. The haunting middle section of this song gives me the kinda chills that Santeria’s “Haunted Heart” did last year and the killer production job by Chris Tsangrides (man, it’s nice to hear his name again) only serves to magnify it. But we’re far from done. Through “One Armed Man,” “Angelspray,” “Short But Swell” & “Puppeteer,” this crew simply brings the hard-assed beating, a massive torrent of rifftastic, Flying V-thru-Marshall-driven, post-NWOBHM/thrash/stoner/’70’s hard rawk that is gorgeous thing to be slayed by. One thing this band does in particular, which hardly ever gets mentioned these days, and which I always have loved is the simply nasty rhythms they employ underneath the guitar solos. One guitarist lays down a volatile bed of churning, roiling groove while the other throws open an industrial-sized can of whoop-ass in the guitar solo department. And then, they switch off! Or, they lock together in a Thin Lizzy-style harmony. It’s gorgeous, let me tell you! I’m about to nominate this pair (Arend Hamelryck & Roel Paulussen) for sainthood. And, that’s not to take away from the raw-powered throaty vocals of Frank Homolka, who’s rugged enough to approximate the Lem-meister but still has enough melody in his pipes to make a monster like closer “Divide” his personal stomping ground.
If there’s one thing I hope that you readers take away from this review, it’s not to underestimate the level of how good this disc is. It is everything that the word “rawk” means to me and it is the kind of release that defines what I’m looking for when I troll the net in the name of Raysrealm. In fact, the only thing better than this majestic assbuster of a platter is the fact that, while released in Europe in 2008, it didn’t become available in the States until late January ’09. So, if the spirit moves me (and Colossus doesn’t release 10 albums this year), I could still give this sucker a Top 10 ride. That’s called having your cake and eating it too.
10.0
http://raysrealm.blogspot.com/search?q=solenoid
3:48 AM
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