Style: avant-garde doom metal, experimental rock, drone, dark ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Bohren & der Club of Gore, Lingua Ignota, Spencer Zahn, Talk Talk, Bell Witch
Review by: Andy
Country: Denmark
Release date: 24 November 2023
I would name my child after Italy’s I, Voidhanger records if I could: their motto—“obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground”—says it all. Their roster of eclectic, artistic bands has no parallel, and essentially every album is worth listening to because you don’t know if you’ll get freaky jazz fusion tech death (Sarmat), drone/jazz/world music triple albums (Neptunian Maximalism), or any other style of freaky, unusual (typically metallic) music. I knew I needed to claim Sol as soon as I saw the list of instruments used on the album, including (and certainly not limited to) marxolin, church organ, tuba, bass clarinet, hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre… indeed, they really looted an entire university music department.
Promethean Sessions invokes a particularly unusual compositional style, closer to Talk Talk’s Spiritof Eden than any metal project. Recorded over many years’ worth of sessions, Emil Brahe (the mastermind of Sol) painfully stitched together a diverse tapestry of sounds into an intricately-detailed, thought-out composition still oozing with an improvisational vitality. Getting lost in the textured ambience of Promethean Sessions is ineluctable, especially with such spacious, dynamic production. Sol has a rich sound, befitting of the contemplative ambience found on tracks like “A Choir of Teeth,” which feels deeply spiritual in a manner similar to Lingua Ignota—minus her death industrial harshness. Going along with the ambience, Promethean Sessions’s flow is distinctly divorced from typical metal composition, even I, Voidhanger’s weirdest offerings. Indeed, Sol sound beautifully ecological here, letting the spirit meander like the branching of a river delta or of a root system, fractal intricacies breaking off from the main composition beautifully.
Despite the evocative, harrowing atmosphere Sol’s music seeps, the album feels pitifully one-dimensional. For example, the magnificent cast of instruments really doesn’t add much except for occasional texture: my disappointment that the bowed lyre and tuba weren’t prominent features of a metal track is immeasurable. Speaking of, the tracks that verge on metal at all (“I bred a Sun from the Golden Mouth,” “Paranoia Sunrise”) are surprisingly non-exploratory, borrowing the fuzzy distortion of stoner-doom rather than a more dynamic style. At first, these straightforward metal sections are a fitting contrast to the slow atmospheres, but on closer examination, I found that the ambient sections showed off Sol at their strongest, providing a richly textured soundscape suited both for close listening or a peaceful background for reading.
Moreover, the vocals across the album are unspectacular, even when regarded as just another instrumental texture. Except for the slightly ecstatic vocals on “A Choir of Teeth,” the droning monotony of most of the vocal lines is, to be quite frank, bland as hell. None of the vocalists have a spectacular enough timbre to work well as a drone above the concord of sounds and instruments. I can feel a hint of the energy that the vocalists attempt to contribute, but instead they make a disappointingly flat, slow album even more one-note until parts like the climactic choir at the end of “Where the Trees Meet the Storm.” Had Promethean Sessions had more overwhelming moments like the final minute of that track, this review would’ve gone a lot differently.
While I criticized Promethean Sessions a lot, it still perfectly fits every aspect of the “obscure, unique, and uncompromising visions from the metal underground” except for possibly the metal part. I can’t fault the uncompromising vision or immaculate attention to detail of Sol, and I still think this is a worthwhile album to let wash over you; however, the execution was lagging a little bit behind the vision here.
Recommended tracks: A Choir of Teeth, Paranoia Sunrise
You may also like: Neptunian Maximalism, Forlesen, Intaglio, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Galya Bisengalieva, Aerial Ruin
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: I, Voidhanger Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Band in question is:
Emil Brahe: Synthesizer, organ, accordion, electric mandolin, gong, vocal
Andrew Dorman: Vocal, synthesizer, guitar, marxolin
Rikke Alminde: Vocal, church organ, vibraphone
Tor Brandt: Vocal, guitar, piano
Stine Kloster: Vocal, bowed banjo, guitar
Christian Qvortrup: Drums, vocal
Andreas Hansn: Guitar
Peter Borre: Bass
Lotte Maxild: Bass clarinet, clarinet, organ
Olga Goija: Viola
Jens Balder: Trombone, tuba
Christian Sinding Sondergaard: Dulcimer, violin, guitar
Mikkel Reher-Langberg: Clarinet
Jens Peter Moller: Double bass
Aske Krammer: Double bass, percussion
Anna Emilie Wittus Johnsen: Hurdy gurdy, bowed lyre
Mikko Mansikkala Jensen: Feedback guitar
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