Solace of Requiem – “The Great Awakening”

Over the past year I’ve developed a bit of a fixation with Solace of Requiem – I raided their webshop at the start of the year and since them I’ve been playing their previous albums incessantly while waiting for “The Great Awakening” to be released. After a bit of a delay, the album is now here and the CD is now in its rightful place in my CD collection.

“The Great Awakening” is a fantastic slice of technical Death Metal, and fans of the genre will not be disappointed. With that said, if you are worried about parting with your cash, click here and have a listen to the free samples before placing your order.

The album opens with “Transcending the Archaic” – an instrumental piece that sets the tone for the whole album. The intro builds up slowly before launching into a hard-hitting riff and some powerful drumming.

I’ve been aware of the second track on this album, “Rivers”, for quite some time since it’s available as a free download from the band’s official website. However, it was great to hear it in context with the other tracks on the album and it flows really well after “Transcending the Archaic”. The track has a number of tempo changes which makes for an exciting listening experience. It’s tracks like this that make me wish that Solace of Requiem’s recent European tour had included a couple of dates in England. I’ve got my fingers, toes, arms, legs and eyes crossed that they’re able to pay us a visit next time around!

“Divine Punishment” has already cemented itself as one of my favourites from this album. It’s a relatively short track, but it has a shitload of attitude and power. Plus, the guitar solo is ridiculously good and suits the song down to the ground. If it doesn’t make you want to pick up your air guitar, then there’s got to be something wrong!

The next track, “Mariner”, sounds like it would go down a storm in a live situation. There’s a fantastic – if varied at times – rhythm running through it which makes it more than perfect for a good ol’ headbanging session. This track also really shows off the skills of the musicians and every time I listen to it I think ‘Damn, I wish I could play that!’.

“Those Born to Suffer” is another track that I’d heard previously, and it’s still as hard-hitting as ever. As with most of the tracks on the album, the vocals seem to be a cross between Death Metal styled and Black Metal styled… well, at least they sound like that to my ears!

“Perspective from the Tesseract” is a strangely calming, and completely unexpected, instrumental track. This near-classical piece does not prepare you for the following track, “Scourge of Wills”. After the relative calm of its predecessor, “Scourge of Wills” doesn’t try to ease you back in gently to the Death Metal onslaught, instead it just chucks you in head first. This track definitely gets the top marks and two thumbs up from me.

“Arctic Reflections” is the third and final track that I’d already listened to previously. When I first heard the track (several months ago), I thought it was technical Death Metal at its finest (with a dash of Black Metal – have a listen and you should, hopefully, see what I mean)… and, you’ll be pleased to know, my opinion hasn’t changed. Definitely another favourite from this album, and possibly one of my favourites overall from Solace of Requiem.

“Homage to Shiva” closes the album in a completely frantic (yet melodic) way. A very fitting end to this particular musical journey.

I’ll end this review more or less how I started it – “The Great Awakening” is a superb example of technical Death Metal. One of my favourite albums of 2010.

Rating: 98%

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