ALBUM REVIEW: Solastalgia – Heretoir

It’s been a busy few years for HERETOIR. The German post-metal outfit formed in the mid-2000s as a solo outlet for guitarist and vocalist David Conrad, dropping a couple of albums, EPs and a compilation through to this decade. Then in 2023, they released both the Wastelands EP and third album Nightsphere – a powerful, brooding record of blackened post-metal, opening the doors to international tours and festivals. Now firmly established as a core trio with Matthias Settele on bass and Nils Groth on drums, HERETOIR return with the expansive and emotional Solastalgia.

The best parts of the previous record, primarily manifest across extended-length tracks, are distilled into cohesive, single-worthy songs to impressive effect. Lead single and album opener The Ashen Falls is a powerful statement of intent: tearing through intro and verses of vocal and riff aggression, but returning to a massive fist-in-the-air chorus. Conrad shows off his vocal chops throughout the record – as adept at growls and screams as the massive melodic vocal fry characterising those choruses, occasionally bordering on screamo. It’s not a one-off either – You Are The Night finds an even bigger leading riff hook in a simple rotating guitar line, and a chorus full of two-handed guitar gymnastics and surging chord changes. It’s easily the standout moment of the record.

Solastalgia swaps the dark, bleak tones of Nightsphere – a record characterised by atmosphere and thrilling dynamic switch-ups – for a modern metal sound of redemption and catharsis. The album title is a German-style portmanteau, capturing the feelings of grief and despair that arise when faced with the loss of one’s environment, a phenomenon increasingly relevant in the face of climate change. Yet the response here musically is one of hope and recognition. HERETOIR achieve this through music style – the blackened edges of previous work sawn off in favour of something closer to the mid-2010s ARCHITECTS sound – and the simple but devastatingly effective melodies and vocal cries on the likes of Season of Grief and Inertia. The Ashen Falls goes one step further with a spoken word sample recognising mental health challenges, a powerful choice that elevates the song.

There’s still plenty of recognisable HERETOIR DNA here. Groth provides a tour de force of drumming, adding an immediacy throughout the album with inch-perfect blast beats and double kicks to salt the more atmospheric stretches. Longer-form songs persist too alongside the tighter singles, with plenty of creative flourishes. Season of Grief stretches for nearly ten minutes, featuring clean guitars and a swing feel alongside growls and full-throttle drums. The disparate sections gel well together, buoyed by clever transitions – seen at their best on Inertia, whose piano intro cuts to a flatline tone into all-out cymbal crashes and a mighty scream.

But there’s an urge to show some different gears too. Dreamgatherer goes all-in on a major key intro of chiming guitars and clean-led vocals throughout, the growls reserved for background doubling only. The Heart of December takes a step further: a waltz-time, mid-tempo ballad led by acoustic guitar. It could be mistaken for alternative rock if not for the post-rock tremolo picking, all the bite stripped away. For those craving the heavier moments, Burial resets affairs with a much faster pace and a snarling riff.

For all the impressiveness of Solastalgia as an album, it loses its way in its final three songs. The title track strives to be a cathartic apex, but suffers from a slow pace and lack of tonal transitions over a long runtime; those emotive tones begin to feel like syrup. A middle section that repeats the main parts but with blast beats feels, for the first and only time, like formula rather than inspiration. The Same Hell MMXXV is a re-record of a single from last year, an atmospheric ballad that feels misplaced in the running order, tacked on. An IN FLAMES cover of Metaphor closes proceedings. It’s entertainingly distinct, but adds little to the original and feels more like a bonus track than a worthy denouement.

Bands can sometimes find themselves trapped in their sound, unable to find ways to evolve and innovate their sound whilst retaining what makes them special. HERETOIR have achieved all that and more on Solastalgia and deserve full credit. Easily the band’s best work, it shows a bravery in its stylistic shifts and growth in the songwriting that goes well beyond blackened post-metal and will delight fans of all stripes of metal. A disappointing final stretch does little to diminish its moments of brilliance.

Rating: 7/10

Solastalgia is out now via AOP Records.

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