Today, Purity Through Fire announces September 22nd as the international release date for Solus Grief‘s highly anticipated second album, What If This Was Everything, on CD format. The vinyl LP version will follow on October 27.
It was late last year when Norwegian newcomer Solus Grief burst from the void with their debut album, With a Last Exhale. Originally released digitally, by February of this year did Purity Through Fire spread the infection in physical form, seeing as the label has taken under its banner the myriad other bands of mainman Peregrinus – among them, Unholy Craft and Kvad. With a Last Exhale, on paper, might’ve seemed like just another one-man DSBM release, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth: with robust songwriting and tangible physicality, Solus Grief‘s first album equally nodded to ’90s melodic death metal, ’80s doom metal, and even proper heavy metal itself, making for a unique expression stemming from the Norwegian black metal tradition.
Bucking expectations once again, Solus Grief returns quickly with their second album, What If This Was Everything, and just as quickly show newer sides to that expression. Immediately, it becomes clear that this sophomore full-length is a rawer and wilder one – denser and more desperate, restless and relentless, the very sound of a man painfully wearing his heart on his sleeve and then just obliterating it. Suitably recorded during the winter by Peregrinus, What If This Was Everything utilizes the same epic four-song structure as its predecessor, but with 47 minutes this time instead of 41, those labyrinths become longer and more treacherous, betraying an expanded palette and frenzied brushwork. It’s not that huge changes in style occur here – the foundation, for the most part, is nearly the same – but the songwriting undeniably becomes more winding, the melodicism more surprising, and the black metal underbelly fully felt. Still, it’s the utter anguish in Peregrinus’ voice which puts this record into rarefied territory, as well as the equally anguished manner in which he plays all the instruments: you truly BELIEVE IT. Compounding this frayed-ends-of-sanity approach is the aforementioned production, which is more caustic than its stoic predecessor, but perhaps this is simply down to Peregrinus punishing said instruments…What If This Was Everything indeed.
In the meantime, hear the brand-new track “Upon the Winds, My Breath Left” here:
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Solus Grief’s What If This Was Everything
1. Upon the Winds, My Breath Left [9:25]
2. Within the Fires [12:21]
3. What If This Was Everything [13:43]
4. Of the Earth Cold [10:42]
MORE INFO:
www.solusgrief.bandcamp.com