New Dark Age

There’s something to be said when the atmosphere of an album doesn’t just help the musicianship along, but comes directly from the musicianship – if that makes a lick of sense.

Nevertheless, Solstice’s New Dark Age is always going to be the example I return to every time. You can’t help but be drawn into the world of this album from the first minute into the opening track, a frozen realm where the battle never quite ends. Every single element of this album radiates power, from the skull-crushing guitar wizardry of Herr Rich M Walker, to the unrelenting pounding of the drums courtesy of Rick Budby, even down to the incredible contrast between Morris Ingram’s relatively squeaky-clean vocals and the monstrous instrumentals.

Speaking of Ingram, while I initially wasn’t the biggest fan of his vocals, the aforementioned contrast between his voice and the instruments lends Walker’s cryptic lyrics even more gravity and mystery. I truly cannot imagine anyone else singing on this album, and at this point I wouldn’t want to hear anyone else.

Each part of this album hits like a tidal wave on its own – and it does so, so much with little! To me, it easily subsists off of its aforementioned unique atmosphere – through the pure power of the riffs, drums, and vocals. There are slight moments of reprieve that give you a break from the relentless doom pummeling here and there in the form of interludes – which are admittedly slightly oddly paced.

Regardless, the sum of its parts stands alone as one of the most epic (and I mean that in every sense of the word) listening experiences I’ve ever had in my journey through the hallowed, dusty halls of epic doom. It’s the sometimes melancholic, sometimes grandiose, and sometimes brutal soundtrack to a lost world, where the daylight dies, and gives rise to a new dark age.

This album is a stone cold classic, mostly, kind of. When I was doing primary school teaching, the giving feedback to kids strategy was something like "two deposits for every transaction", ie two bits of praise for every bit of negative feedback. Well, let's get the negative feedback out of the way first.

Yeah, so the vocals. Well they aren't horrible, but considering how ridiculously great the rest of the album is it's a real strange thing. Devoid of power- you know how people sing when they aren't confident? Well, it's pretty much that. Very little range, no real power, just kinda whining. Considering that the vocalist didn't even write the lyrics- which by the way, are these nicely over the top lyrics that take verbosity way beyond parody- you've got to wonder why he's even in the band. You get a few guys together, and chances are that one of them will be a better singer than this guy. Real strange.

It's made more perplexing when you compare the vocals to the rest of the album, which is just ridiculously good, in pretty much every way. It's not particularly far out or anything, but it doesn't really sound like much else- I'm thinking a more muscular While Heaven Wept circa their Vast Oceans... album, or early Atlantean Codex. It borrows a lot from early death doom, decent bit of early, non shit Katatonia and even Anathema in here, and I reckon in some places there's even a touch of melodic black metal- bit of Sacramentum and that Decameron band or whatever. That said, the core here is pure heavy/doom stuff- a lot of early Candlemass, Pagan Altar, NWOBHM-on-steroids sort of thing. It's a really great mix, and it's done super well.

Anyway, it's real huge and ticks off all the boxes with aplomb. A thicker atmosphere than Jupiter, while still being monstrously heavy. Catchy, but rarely veering into outright melodic territory. Great, lyrical dual leads. A mood that could best be described as "a medieval english knight getting rained on", rather gloomy, rather grim, occasionally very fierce. The songs are rarely in a hurry to finish, but when the songwriting is this tight, when the parts are this good, that's fine. It's pretty rare I think a 67 minute album isn't long enough.. but here I am, wishing there were a few more songs. I can perhaps nitpick a little bit- some of the acoustic parts drag. That's pretty much it.

So, the vocals are bad but the rest is world class- as in, all-time classic sorta thing. How to rate it? Well, after 50 odd listens I'm still not sure! The best comparison I can come up with is perhaps Briton Rites' excellent but flawed For Mircalla, where massive riffs where dragged down by some generic, whiny doom vocals. Here, it's perhaps not as bad- plenty of long sections with few vocals, the dude isn't super offensive and if nothing else it's fun wrapping yourself around the idiosyncratic lyrics. The question is- does the album succeed, despite it's weakness? The answer is an overwhelming yes, for me. So highly recommended.

This album is a hard one for me to review as I consider it one of the finest albums ever made. If I made a podcast/video review it would entirely consist of THIS RIFF, THAT VOCAL LINE, THAT HARMONY, and yes all of those words would be shouted with nearly tears forming in my eyes too. However for the domain of written reviews that is the metal archives that kind of gushing non subjectivity won't work will it? So please bare with me while I try to write a mediocre review about one of the best albums ever made.

So now I gave you my warning let's move on to the actual album. I would describe this album as the following: Imagine Candlemass mixed with Running Wild's Celtic melodies run through Pagan Altar's mindset. The closest resemblance out there would be the The White Goddess by The Atlantean Kodex except this album has no Hammerheart era Bathory feel to it in terms of the tones of the instruments. It is also decidedly less power metal influenced. Lastly this album sounds English to the core. The songwriting itself is absolutely stellar, everything seems to be arranged and written just right to cause one to always long for more while listening to the specific parts of the album yet at the end of each track and the album itself you do feel thoroughly fulfilled.

The album itself sounds very big and powerful. The rhythm guitars sound fairly raw, open and powerful. They mostly play mid tempo heavy/doom riffs with only the last track having mostly full on doom riffs. The lead guitars ride over the underlying rhythm guitars with a very clear and bright tone. Some of the leads are solos but for the majority of the time there are lead guitar riffs based on folk/Celtic scales. These leads are the element that really make the album amazing. The rest of the instruments mostly exist to make these leads work even better. The bass guitar is mixed in quite well and provides the low end. The drums pound and gallop with the seemed intent to stir up the listener in order to get us to do battle for the protection of our own realm. The vocals at first might come over at first as the weakest aspect here and if I wasn't floored by everything else during my first listen I would most likely agree. However since I've spun this piece several times I have to say that the vocals fit perfectly. The vocals are one of the factors which give this album such a feeling that this album is done by and for the not so common, common man. The people who go through the drudges of every day and feel that they don't entirely quite feel right in. I would even say that I can imagine the one distant relative of mine who is a sheep herder but reads the most complicated books on philosophy while herding could have done these.

Not all the tracks on this are metal however. There is this great tension building interlude called Alchemiculte. The Anguine Rose is a beautiful short acoustic piece. The following track Blackthorne is a vocal driven track with some more nice acoustic guitars underneath. The Keep is a vocal driven track seemingly recorded at the edge of a windy cliff. A lot of people might skip over these tracks because they are not metal, I however think that they are all really well done and add to the album.

In conclusion: I really like this album, seriously I really do. There are no real flaws other than those precious flawed perfections that belongs to a properly non pro tools recorded album. I completely recommend this album to all fans of real heavy metal. This is a thundering heavy metal record for the ages.

Whereas Solstice’s previous album was very much in a doom tradition, New Dark Age finds the band spreading their wings and branching out into a more epic metal direction. In fact, if anything I consider this to be as much heavy metal as it doom and the band is all the better for it. Lamentations, although a fair album in its own right, feels a little drab in places and especially when it’s stood next to this monumental piece… an appropriate analogy would be like comparing a city park to a windswept moor. Onwards and upwards, Solstice had emerged from the shadowy UK doom scene with this full-blooded epic.

Of course, this large sonic overhaul was aided by some serious changes in line-up as Solstice mastermind, Professor RM Walker and Lee Netherwood are the only members to have featured on 1996’s Halycon EP. Although, his predecessor was a fine vocalist, and perhaps more technically confident, Morris Ingram is perfect for this album; his voice just seems very ‘pure’ and he certainly plays a large part in this album’s appeal. He’s the velvet glove over these iron-fisted riffs, if I were to just sum him using only Motörhead lyrics. On lead guitar, too, Hamish Glencross – who wasn’t even 20 at this time – does a fine job; he’s a bit flash in places but his solos have a strong sense of drama to them. The drums, too, are very complementary to the album; providing interesting accents that ensure this isn’t a ‘plodding’ album like Lamentations (don’t get me wrong, though, I still like that album).

What’s unique about Solstice for me, though, is their identifiably English sound and for my money this is probably the purest display of heavy metal finery from England outside of the NWOBHM movement. And whatever reason, England’s never quite been able to get a decent heavy metal scene again since the early 80s. Basically, there were no other bands in Britain producing stuff like this at the time (there still aren’t, really). So to find English metal that’s this fucking good really warms my heart of stone and blood of ice. I guess you can readily compare the first Solstice album to a fair bit of the death/doom scene (for instance, it’s not that far apart from early Anathema) but on New Dark Age the band are definitely going for full-frontal – albeit doomy – heavy metal; it’s like they just drank nine pints of Manowarian ale before going in to record this stuff.

What’s more is that this music is beautifully structured; not only can Rich Walker write brilliant Cimmerian skull-crushing riffs but he knows how to really arrange this stuff perfectly. These songs tend to be on the lengthy side, anyway, but it’s all the subtle twists and turns that makes them so magical. Take the opener, ‘The Sleeping Tyrant’ with its proud, vibrant melodies: when the main riff comes in it’s wonderful but then you’re left in awe when they change things up a little as the rhythm guitar comes crashing in with the main riff in front of it. No matter how many times I’ve heard it, it just feels so glorious. ‘Cromlech’, too, has this masterful structure; those moody, swarthy guitars and then that crushing main riff. Solstice seem to always know the best way to combine these beautiful melodies with a bruising heaviness that works so very well… especially with that grand guitar sound. You can really tell that a lot of time and effort went into producing this album; lyrically and musically this is so obviously first-rate stuff. It makes me laugh to think how grand this actually is compared to stuff that’s obviously trying much too hard to be grand without any actual muscle behind it. Jon Schaffer couldn’t produce anything this grand with all the fucking triplets in the world and Ihsahn can take his cheesy trumpet-synths and stick them up his arse, because this band knows how to really write grand music without sounding like some ridiculous, King Arthur on Ice exercise in pomp. Fuck the wankers, give me some epic riffs!

Ahem, yes, this is a very easy album to get excited about; it deserves repeated listens for anyone with a remote interest in epic heavy metal. With any luck the band should be back in 2012 with a new album – the new material I’ve heard is, expectedly, fantastic – and it’s probably my most anticipated release for some years. What can I say, really? This is a wonderful, fantastical, foaming-at-the-mouth-and-falling-over-backwards-whilst-writing-an-advert-inducing album; the best heavy metal album to come out of England since the NWOBHM! Fuck!

It begins with the sound of waves. A ship's horn slowly works its way in, and then a spoken-word intro. And once the table is set, in rolls the first massive riff, over the roar of the sea.

This will not be the last time a quiet moment is gloriously broken.

The guitars weave together the fabric of this album. They alternate between thick doomy riffs and soaring melodic leads in such an effective way that very few other bands or albums can compare to. And such an atmosphere it creates. The sound is often quite heavy (the bass presence is significant, and the bass drums are often rolling), and the themes not exactly happy, but this is not a downbeat album. I can think of no better word to describe it than the terribly overused "epic". This is truly an epic work, and puts to shame many others that purport to bear that label.

And it's catchy too! The leads and riffs are memorable. I can't stop myself from singing along to the choruses, even when I can't make out most of the words (more on that later). The songs are often long, but never drag on.

The vocals are fairly unique for this sort of music. Initially they didn't seem to fit the heavy nature of the music. Morris Ingram's vocals are not weak, but they have this sort of "light" quality to them. They seem to somehow float above the crash of the waves beneath. His delivery is not exactly standard either. The lyrics are often quite wordy, and the vocals meander their way through them at their own pace. This, combined with the blaring bass and rhythm guitars, as well as Ingram's noticeable accent, can make it a challenge to pick out the lyrics. His vocals are as clean as clean can get, but just the same. This is unfortunate, because they're pretty interesting. But none of this is bad, and upon reflection, I wouldn't want anyone else handling the vocals on this album.

As mentioned above, this is not an album that is afraid to make changes as it progresses. Acoustic guitars play a prominent role in several songs. One song, Blackthorne, is entirely acoustic. And it may be my favorite song on the album. Occasional effects are added and very well used, such as the aforementioned waves and howling wind on The Keep.

The drums are very competently played. Rolling bass drums add heaviness. The fills are excellent, especially on New Dark Age II. At points in certain songs, such as Cimmerian Codex and Hammer of Damnation, they are played in what resembles a marching style. On a slow to mid-paced album like this, drums do not often add significantly to the overall character. Yet here they do, and New Dark Age is better for it.

After the monolith that is New Dark Age II, the album draws to a close, but not without leaving a final impression. The outro, Legion XIII, deserves to be mentioned on its own. The guitar is emitting what sounds like its death throes, and one man is screaming, vainly trying to be heard over what sounds like a church choir. He's shouting for all he's worth about some unspeakable horror, and goes completely unheard. It's a powerful conclusion.

New Dark Age starts with atmosphere, ends with atmosphere, and has atmosphere throughout. This is the sort of album one can sit down and listen to intently for an hour, and never get bored. This is also the sort of album one can put on in the background, and enjoy the rising crests and epic melodies of its sound. In either case, it is an album that deserves to be listened to in its entirety. It is one of my all-time favorite albums, and I'd be surprised to find anyone who likes metal (or rock, even) that would not enjoy this album.

“What the F*ck, is THIS really doom metal?!” was my first thought when the opening riff in “The Sleeping Tyrant” hit me. I expected something more like Candlemass or Solitude Aeturnus, since mighty Solstice is often mentioned in the same sentence, but this much more fast paced, folk influenced and melody driven “doom” metal takes the winning as far as I’m concerned.

This album is very personal and draws influence from many directions, may it be folk music, Manowar, Viking-era Bathory and a shitload of pure epicness which, in my humble opinion, makes the perfect metal album. One aspect that contributes to that is the singer, Moz Ingram, whose high voice and rolling R’s adds a very pagan and arcane vibe to the overall sound image, as do the lyrics – which are on a completely own level . No other singer sounds like him, and he sounds like no others.

Song wise is “New Dark Age” close to perfection. The guitar riffs delivered by main man Mr. Rich Walker are very powerful and potent, as is the pounding drumming. “The Sleeping Tyrant” and “The Cimmerian Codex” are two perfect examples of extremely muscular yet very melodic epic metal at its absolutely best. And as far as I’m concerned not many other doom metal bands dare to include an all-acoustic folk ballad (Blackthorne), which is followed by a tune where Ingram’s voice is kept company by only the whispering wind, called The Keep. All the heavy songs are very powerful and contain lots of hooks and mighty melodies. All tracks are pretty long and are not built up by the usual verse-bridge-chorus-model, but are much more complex than that. The only weak part of the record is the closing track New Dark Age II, which also is the slowest and longest track; almost 13 minutes long. It gets better as time goes, but it is a bit TOO slow in the beginning. Although, the splendid lyrics lift it, but a record of this caliber deserves a stronger closing track!

The production is extremely good for being an underground doom metal band, actually sometimes TOO good. The bass is a bit too low and the guitars are a bit too clean, which reduces the heaviness of the music a bit, but just a little. It is still damn heavy and crushing!

The overall impression I have gained after listening to it for about 150 times the last 2 years is extremely good! Some of the best songs I have ever heard in my life are on this album, and I count it as one of my favorites of all time! It is definitely one of the greatest epic doom metal records ever made! Doom or be doomed!

It's quite disheartening to see that this album has no reviews at the moment and that the band itself has far less reviews than it should. What surprising is that although Solstice is far from a household name, anyone with a genuine interest in doom metal would have heard of Solstice. Solstice does a great deal of meshing styles and with great success. Solstice seem to take the mystical and folky elements of Pagan Altar and add quite a bit of Manowar and Iron Maiden on this album. While the debut album “Lamentations” showcased Solstice's ability to create soaring yet crushing doom metal anthems such as “Neither Time or Tide” and “Only the Strong”, New Dark Age is much more heavier and faster than the debut ever was. Due to this slight change in style, there is a far different atmosphere found on this album. While the previous album blanketed you in crushing yet glorious sorrow, New Dark Age will literally crush you; much like the waves that can be heard at the onset of the album.

The first thing anyone will probably notice is the change in vocals. Replacing Simon Matravers is vocalist Morris Ingram. There is quite a difference between both vocalists although both have a similar style. Morris Ingram's vocals are less “mythical sounding” than Matravers and wouldn't sound out of place in another genre such as power metal or heavy metal. Nonetheless, he works perfectly for the music and it seems that the band themselves have done a great job adapting to the change. One interesting detail of Ingram's performance is that he really tends to roll his words when he pronounces the letter “r”. Although most likely a product of his natural accent than anything deliberate, it still adds quite a bit to the experience when one catches it. Ingram's highlight on this album is certainly on the track “Cimmerian Codex”. This is especially seen when one listens at 3:00 where Ingram's soaring voice recites the verse with just the hypnotic drums supporting him. Another highlight is when Ingram solely sings on “The Keep”as he shows an astounding display of vocal talent until an epic choir soon joins in.

As stated before, there are quite a few new elements and changes on New Dark Age. While the debut had the earthy production that characterized the early 90's, this beast of an album has a more modern production. One should not fret though, as one normally would upon hearing “modern”, as the band clearly knows how to use this production without sacrificing any passion or humanity. The guitar tone is much crunchier and unhinged while the drums sound like pounding war drums. The songs are extremely long yet are far from being too long and repetitive. Interestingly enough, it seems one could probably fit a Sore Throat release in some of the longer songs.

Musically, this album is best described as sounding extremely English. The music conjures up visions of the beautiful English landscapes and pre-Christian warriors who were content with the world that their ancestors had provided them with. I would even go far as to say that Solstice does a far better job of conveying folk/pagan atmospheres than most black metal and folk metal bands could ever hope to do so. There are also quite a few acoustic English folk interludes on this album that help to break up the crushing metal as well to accentuate the Englishness of this album. And as one would expect, Solstice pretty much destroys the competition when it comes to this as well. While the intro to the album (which is also it's title track) is just seaside ambience, it is far from long and does not overstay it's welcome. Instrumental tracks like “Alchemiculte” and “The Anguine Rose” are lush and beautiful forays into folk music that would make early Ulver green with envy. The highlight of the interludes is definitely the folk track “Blackthorne” as the beautiful acoustic guitar is accompanied by soft spoken vocals, reminiscing over a supernatural love affair.

Adding to the uniqueness of this album, is the phenomenal guitar playing by Richard Walker, who punks and people with good taste will recognize as being the sore throat of the legendary band “Sore Throat”. Walker's guitar playing is firmly rooted in the classic doom and heavy metal discipline but has a much more jagged and warped feel as he tends to use quite a few palm muted rhythms. Walker has one of the best commands of the minor scale that I have ever heard and you can definitely hear it throughout the album. On the faster songs, the guitar play lends itself to feel like a very heavy version of NWOBHM playing ala early Iron Maiden. This is seen in the glorious dual harmonies on “The Sleeping Tyrant” as well as the lead motif that is found in the beginning and other parts of “The Hammer of Damnation”. The guitars are no one trick pony either as each song has epic melodies as the twisting melodies that occur at 7:20 and onward in the track “Cromlech”. Richard Walker also deserves my undying respect for being able to fit a few divebombs into his solos without turning it into a mess. The linear notes suggest that Jerry Budby and H.H Doublecross were also present as guitar players on the album on different occasions and I must also acknowledge whatever contributions these two guitarists might have add to the album.

Although the genre of doom metal does occasionally tend to push aside the drummers, Rick Budby can be easily heard pounding his war drums. He doesn't only stick to the 4/4 beat that many doom metal drummers lazily keep to nor does he needlessly try to divert attention like every “technical/progressive” drummer who has to let everyone know how good they are (shut the fuck up, Richard Christy). Like a skilled drummer who knows how to tastefully add fills, Budby adds subtle fills and changes that fit the song and drive it onward. Keeping the rhythm section strong alongside Budby is Solstice bassist Lee “Chaz” Netherwood. The bass can be heard clearly and usually follows the guitars. However, this underlying support of the guitars by Netherwood makes this album that much heavier and coherent.

Although fans of the first album may be disappointed that the large amounts of doom have been replacing with raging epic metal, there are a few doom metal anthems still present. The songs “Cimmerian Codex” and “New Dark Age II” are doom metal monsters that are as enthralling as they are liberating. “New Dark Age II” is a slow crawler of a track but does not bore at all. It is probably the band's least accessible track and that may detract some of the listeners from enjoying it fully. “Cimmerian Codex” seems to be the album highlight as it has the band's best performance. Ingram's vocals soar high above the crushing riffs and pounding war drums. The song also has some of the greatest lyrics on the album as is shown with the following:

"Forgive me father (for I walk alone)
To a destiny untainted, opaque, my own."

The lyrics are vivid and complex throughout the album. English bands such as My Dying Bride and Cradle of Filth are usually lauded as being “great” lyricists but I can safely say that Solstice, not MDB or CoF, should be regarded as the true successors to Sabbat's throne as lyrical genuises. Throw away any notions of progressive or technical bands trying to use a thesaurus and failing miserably because Solstice have created intricate yet memorable verses that will echo across your mind as you enjoy this masterpiece of an album. In all seriousness, the lyrics in the linear notes have increased my vocabulary by a few words, never hearing someone use “telluric” and “circean”.

On my CD version of New Dark Age which was released on 2007, there are two cover versions that those lucky enough to get the 2001 vinyl release would have heard. I must say that these two cover songs are of utmost quality. The first one is a cover of “The Prophecy” by metal legends Iron Maiden but Solstice take it and morph it into a quality Solstice track (not to say that the original itself is anything but quality). I would wager that people who have not heard Seventh Son of a Seventh Son would think that this was an original piece by Solstice! I would not go as far as to commit blasphemy and say that it is better than the original but I do prefer the folkier ending that Solstice plays for the song over the original's ending. The second cover track is by a NWOBHM band called Trespass and I must say that this song has introduced me to the lesser-known band. Writing in the Canadian spring of 2010, I must say that I find it quite interesting that this cover track that was released in 2001 before the increased interest in obscure heavy metal bands that would occur toward the end of the decade. Solstice also get extra points for helping a band that might have not been known to clueless idiots like me garner more interest.

In general, this album is a masterpiece. Yes, Lamentations is a masterpiece as well but I can safely say that this album ranks alongside it's predecessor as one of the greatest metal albums of it's time. Some people say that the 90s was where the traditional metal scene might have faltered but Solstice show no sign of this at all. New Dark Age is an liberating experience that straddles the line of epic doom metal, heavy metal, and traditional doom metal. I could go on and use loaded words such as “liberating”, “crushing” and “glorious” but I don't think it would do much justice. Only once you buy this album and listen to it, you can really understand how crushing, liberating and glorious this beast of an album is.

Recommended for fans of Candlemass, later era Bathory, early Manowar, and Pagan Altar.