Only Human Review

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(More customer reviews)Sonic Syndicate has always marveled me with their unique take on the metal subgenre "Melodic Death Metal". Despite claims from fans and critics alike, Sonic Syndicate still maintains to create Melodic Death Metal, just a style unlike other bands commonly displayed today. Sonic Syndicate can be described basically as a blend between In Flames, System Divide, Sylosis and Soilwork.
Like fellow Melodic Death Metal bands Sylosis, System Divide, and Soilwork, Sonic Syndicate does a unique spin on the genre, mixing heavy growls/screams, with more traditional sounding clean vocals. Sonic Syndicate is capable of pulling this off beautifully thanks to the groups two singers: Richard and Roland. The two vocalists find harmony in their voices throughout the songs, despite the differences in their singing styles.
The album starts off with the melodic, and catchy track "Aftermath". The song finds a nice balance between the two styles, allowing Richard to growl the majority of the verses and leaving Roland to perform the majority of the chorus alone (with Richard occasionally providing accompaniment in the background). It's a formula that Sonic Syndicate usually follows: harsh verses with clean choruses. The formula works precisely, just like the Pythagorean theorem, consistent, and exact.
Several songs venture away from this formula, and allow Roland to take more charge. "Enclave" is a track that consists of solely clean vocals, and the result is amazing. Roland is a very talented and capable singer, and "Enclave" does a great job of showcasing this. Transitioning from quiet, calm singing during the verses to a much more powerful refrain, makes "Enclave" one of the best tracks on the album, due to its intensity despite its difference and variation from the remainder of the album.
Stand out tracks include: "Denied", "Unknown Entity", "Aftermath", and "Psychic Suicide". The pace of these tracks is high tempo, and the blend between vocal styles is at its best in these songs. Sonic Syndicate never struggles to find an equilibrium between singing and growling, and the entire album "Only Inhuman" provides some of the band's best work to date. If you're a fan of Scar Symmetry, In Flames, Sylosis, Mors Principium Est, Soilwork, or Deadlock, you're bound to enjoy listening to this album.

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Includes one bonus track, 'Freelancer'. Nuclear Blast. 2007.--This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

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For Aeons Past Review

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(More customer reviews)If I do say so myself...2010 is turning out to be quite a year for metal. Despite a few regrettable tragedies (Dio, Peter Steele), the actual music being released is some of the most exciting since the boom of the summer of 2008. New albums by Dark Tranquillity, Kalmah, and Nevermore, among others, have shown their quality, with many more, including by the likes of Soilwork, Symphony X, and Iron Maiden on the way. And with all these established bands there have also been a few new arrivals, the most promising of which in my book is the Swedish/Finnish supergroup Solution .45. Best known for their lead vocalist, the much revered former Scar Symmetry front man Christian Alvestam, the release of Solution .45s debut has been the subject of much hype for Scar Symmetry fans as well as the melodeath/prog metal communities in general. My expectations were high, and I'm proud to say they were surpassed. For Aeons Past may be the album of 2010.
S.45 is sometimes criticized for being too reminiscent of Scar Symmetry, an understandable criticism considering the connection between the two bands as well as being the most well known and stylistically similar of Alvestams post SS projects. Like Scar Symmetry, this is definitly the "21st Century" model Scandinavian melodeath in the Soilwork tradition - clean and harsh vox mixed, atmospheric keyboards, a neoclassical bend in the guitar playing and an overall epic song construction - all elements one can indeed find in Scar Symmetry. However, upon closer inspection S.45 do set themselves apart. While Scar Symmetry tended be a bit more straightforward, S.45 ventures more obviously into prog metal territory. Shifting time signatures and general more technical arrangements are present. At the same time, like Scar Symmetry, there is an excellent cohesiveness of song that is highly commendable. Perhaps this is the direction people were expecting from Scar Symmetry to follow up Holographic Universe...nonetheless, the album is excellent. And in addition to Christian, all of the members are at the top of their game. The riffs are rock solid, the solos are mindbogglingly technical and beautifully melodic, and the drums are tight and punishing and the bass...is inaudible most of the time, but it is clear that Alvestam put together a worthy group of musicians, none of which I had been aware of before, but are definitely worthy of backing him up in this venture.
As far as the songs go, every single track on "For Aeons Past" is solid and unique in its own right. Its very difficult to pick a favorite, but the absolute highest achievement of the groups potential is unquestionably the 16 minute epic album closer "Clandestinity Now"...like the Symphony X or Edge of Sanity epics, it is a track that despite its length and branches of arrangement remains consistently cohesive and at no point tempts one with the skip button. Every other song on the album is great in its own way though, no doubt. The only complaint I could possibly give the album is that it does get a bit homogeneous at times, but especially considering this is a debut this is a minor cause for concern. Given Alvestams known resistance to touring I'm not getting my hopes up for an American Solution .45 tour, but they definitely have the potential to be metals "next big thing", and they certainly live up to the hype they've generated in the underground. Any fan of forward thinking and innovative metal should not be without "For Aeons Past".

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For Aeons Past , is Sweden s Solution .45 s impressive debut album; a mix of brutal riffs with unparalleled melancholic atmosphere and epic, heavy progressive song structures. Recorded over a grueling three months, For Aeons Past features lyrical contribution and guest vocals from Dark Tranquillity s mainman Mikael Stanne, and stunning artwork from Pär Olofsson (Immortal, Exodus, The Faceless). "For Aeons Past" is an impressive achievement in modern Metal!

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Dark Tranquility: Live Damage (2003) Review

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(More customer reviews)this dvd includes a full concert (in poland), bootleg videos of dark tranquillity performing in germany, greece, and france, music videos for "monochromatic stains" and "therein," as well as an interview with mikael stanne (vocals), a band biography, photos of the poland show, a discography, and killer artwork.
the poland show was performed on oct 7, 2002. the songs are: the wonders at your feet, the treason wall, hedon, white noise/black silence, haven, punish my heaven, monochromatic stains, undo control, indifferent suns, format c: for cortex, insanity's crescendo, hours passed in exile, the sun fired blanks, damage done, lethe, not built to last, therein, zodijackyl light, and final resistance.
the sound is superb, as is the video quality. dt put on a great show. the only problems are that the audience, except for a few, is unfamiliar with dt and is pretty lethargic. they just stand there most of the time, sometimes trying to clap along, only to stop because of dt's frequent time and tempo changes. but you can tell that they like it. the other problem is that when stanne does clean vocals, like in "therein," the sound does not match the video. it's out of sync by a second or so. it'd be cool if they played some more songs from the gallery and mind's i, and something from skydancer and chaos & eternal night, but oh well. otherwise this portion of the dvd is awesome.
the german show (performed nov 13, 2002) includes: white noise/black silence, haven, wonders at your feet, and final resistance. france (oct 20, 2002) and greece (nov 19, 2002) include: therein, zodijackyl light, final resistance, damage done, wonders at your feet, final resistance, punish my heaven, monochromatic stains, therein, haven, hedon, and white noise/black silence.
those are not repeats, i.e., the titles that are listed twice are performed in different places. that's kind of one of the dvd's drawbacks. since all the shows were recorded from the same tour, there are multiple versions of each song. "therein" appears at least 4 times on the dvd!
the german, french, and greek audiences are much more lively. most of the time you hear them singing along louder than mikael. the video quality is poor, and so is the sound, but that's what you should expect from bootlegs (and remember, the sound and video from the polish show are near perfect).
the interviewer asks stupid questions (e.g. describe dt in 3 words), but mikael manages to give interesting and illuminating answers. one such answer includes a humorous account of what happened when dt was nominated for a grammy.
this is the best music dvd i've ever bought. the show in poland alone is worth every penny, and should be in ever metalhead's collection. but this dvd has so much extra stuff. get it, you won't regret it.

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