Just when you might have thought that Doom/ Death Metal didn't have anything new to offer, along comes the debut release Let There Be A Massacre from Denmark's Sol to take the genre to a whole new level. Sol which is the work of one man, Emil Brahe, has constructed seven songs which absolutely revel in the promise of mankind's total demise. All this is accomplished with a devastating arsenal of some of the slowest, most punishing, almost dirge like riffs that you are ever likely to hear. On top of that Brahe's vocals alternate between a guttural death metal growl and a venomous tortured snarl as he spews out the lines "Let them all decay" with such utter conviction in "Where Angels Rot".
What helps separate Let There Be A Massacre from the rest of the pack is Brahe's willingness to experiment and use such typically non-metal instruments as banjo, accordion and clarinet to formulate a sound that is uniquely his own. The first evidence of these different instruments can clearly be heard on the epic thirteen minute "Boginhi" which starts out with a very simple snare drum introduction underneath a series of repetitive guitar chords. Brahe begins the song by delivering his vocals through what sounds like a megaphone, yelling the phrase "End of Life" over and over before the accordion slowly creeps into the mix and the song eventually settles into a more traditional, slow, doom-like groove around the six minute mark. There isn't anything particularly technical about the performances on Let There Be A Massacre as Brahe's modus operandi here seems to be to keep it relatively simple in regards to song structures and tempos, and in fact the dirge like qualities and rather slow, languid pace of this disc might not end up appealling to everyone in the end. However the strength of this disc lies in it's uncompromising brutality, plain and simple. The overall production quality is excellent, with an specific emphasis placed on massive amounts of guitar distortion, which just amplifies the whole aura of extreme heaviness.
Let There Be A Massacre is hands down one the best discs in a long time in the Doom / Death Metal field and Brahe has sub sequentially not only raised the bar for his next release, but also for the genre as a whole as well.
Track Listing
1) Centuries Of Human Filth
2) Apathetic Pride
3) Boginhi
4) Where Angels Rot
5) Era Of Decadence
6) The Inanity Of Man
7) Apocalypse