EP REVIEW: Through Endless Darkness – Solemnity

Sounding like they’d be more at home in some remote Scandinavian wilderness than in the English Midlands, SOLEMNITY are a rather intriguing proposition. Combining a clear love of melodic death and a flair for the dramatic, this three piece waste little time leaving a lasting impression on latest EP Through Endless Darkness.

Some hauntingly beautiful orchestral tones weave their way into a searing lead guitar line on opener Invierno, setting the stall out early to signal a record that isn’t afraid to cross genre boundaries and meld together a number of stylistic strands.

Pray for Light then gives us our first taste of melodic death metal, sounding in part like a pastiche to INSOMNIUM – a lumbering pace interlaced with rhythmic guitar work and a grandiosity that is often willing to lurk in the shadows, playing second fiddle to the more pummelling elements on display. Immediately apparent is the quality of not only the music but also the production – something that can never be taken for granted for an underground death metal release – as both the heavier sections and the serene fade-out sound sonically fantastic.

The orchestral passages that take the fore on So It Ends add a shimmering symphonic metal feel before giving way to more bowel-loosening vocals that – according to reliable sources – have been known to level small towns across the length and breadth of the British Isles. Closing track Our Demise rolls out the welcome mat, red carpet and all of the bunting it could find for the obligatory blast beats, but their inclusion feels like a natural progression of  the tempo as opposed to a trope that needed to be added to simply tick a box. It never fully scales the mountain to become an epic, sweeping finale, but what it does do is act as a fitting culmination of all that’s come before it – another cocktail of the destructive and the gorgeous; the darkness and the light.

To put it simply, Through Endless Darkness is a good record; in fact, it’s often a very good record. There’s a whole heap of potential here, and with a full-length this talented trio could really look to indulge the more expansive side of their arsenal. That, folks, is a very exciting prospect indeed.

Rating: 8/10

Through Endless Darkness is out now via self-release.

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