Solar Spine

s/t

(c)1997 Solar Spine

Review by Neil St.Laurent

Thanks to the band for the CD

We once reviewed an album called "Reborn Into The Neverwhere" by a little known band called Gommora, it was a definite masterpiece. That band since went on to change their name to Solar Spine, and this recording is their first release under that new moniker. Does the new material hold up with their former works? That is what is to be looked at.

Solar Spine plays a semi-experimental and quite melodic form of metal that combines the extremes of death metal with various more reserved and not-so-harsh influences. The music is very rhythm oriented and never strays any significant degree from strongly guitar driven music; keyboard melodies are blended in the background or laid delicately on top, but never take over for a driving force to the sound. Beyond the rhythm however, there are components that offer guitar leads and a few solos, too often however the strength of their presence just isn't there -- there are several mistakes made. These mistakes exist in the performance and do not appear to be a problem with songwriting; since the Gomorra recording the bassist and a guitarist have been replaced, they may not have fully adjusted to the band yet.

More in general is the production that detracts from the music, while most of the performance is decent, and the songs are themselves very interesting, the overall sound just lacks a solid emotional quality. This is likely as a result of an incomplete atmospheric sound, it is difficult to say exactly why this is, but there does sound to be a variety of mixing problems.

In the end however, Solar Spine's self-titled recording is quite good. It is very original and defies typification into commonly accepted genres, yet maintains a strong metal feel to it, which will certainly be appealing to many people out there. This release would not change their status as being an excellent band, but there is still some needed improvement on the music to be at the same level as their former recording under the name Gomorra.

Solar Spine is:
Gunter - Bass
Jörg - Guitar
Fish - Keyboards
Sven - Vocals
Martin - Guitar
Ralf - Drums

Contact:
Ralf Gottlieb
Wiesendellstr 15
D-55743 Idar-Oberstein
Germany

Voice: +67.81.2.37.88
Fax: +67.81.2.37.88
Web: http://www.uni-kl.de/student/~jungbluth/
Email: Sven.Kessler@t-online.de

Back to Index