Solitude- Japan’s Heavy Metal In the Trenches |

This past Friday November 25th, among the midst of Black Friday shenanigans, the band Solitude released their heavy metal packed album titled Reach For The Sky. If you are looking for melodic heavy metal look no more, Solitude has the riffs all metal heads seek for. Powerful riffs are strummed with loud drum blasts continuing the life of heavy metal. It did not take long to get the sounds from the NWOBHM in the kick off track “Venoms Angel”. A track that starts with a rhythmic melody, with a whining guitar fading in, once the distortion kicks in and you hear the bass pedals setting the war like anthem, your neck begins to jerk uncontrollably. This track is packed with heavy tones, and raspy but magnificent vocals. The singer sounds similar to Lemmy, that is a bold call but we know our metal. This is what metal is intended to do, there is no mockery, not even an ounce of plagiarism, this band is obviously influenced by the masters of metal like Iron Maiden, although you can hear more Overkill and Saxon resemblance through out the album.

Once you reach “Don’t Need Mercy”, your neck has already warmed up for the mayhem this track provides. Akira Sugiuchi sings his guts out during this classic Metallica tempo like song. Meanwhile on guitars Shingo Ida destroys the guitar with a fantastic guitar riff, heavy, fast and a monster of a guitar solo. The drum work by Takamasa “MAD” Ohuichi is relentless. The bass work on this track is furious executed by Toru Nishida, adding depth to the track. This is the third album by the Japanese band, they know how to go to the metal trenches and fight with all guns blazing.

This band has being shredding and thrashing since 1996 playing sounds from the 70’s hard rock era, which emerged in Britain. Saxon, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest are definitely the influence on these muchachos metaleros. The record was mixed and mastered at Pama Studios in Sweden, by Magnus “Mankan” Sedenberg and Magnus “Maxe” Axelsson respectively. This holiday season make sure you get a copy of this heavy metal anthem and be ready to headbang.

Reported By: Hostile Jo