Reviews

Desolat Songs of Love in the Age of Anarchy 12″ picture disc

With a mammoth sound, DESOLAT of Vienna plays plodding, clear, and heavenly sludge metal. The sound here is more riff metal than dooming, droning earthquakes. There is a catchy flavor to the chords, such as MELVINS, and comfortingly dismal such as ASUNDER and NIGHTFELL. Some aspects of this record are ice-cold embittered vocals that have a harmonizing crust feel to them, others are warm, dense, and heavy breakdowns. The pace here is everything from dragging epic passages, to blackened riffing, to D-beat measures for a brief moment. I’m honestly not feeling the love songs from DESOLAT, but definitely the passion. “The Bureaucrat,” about midway through, is my favorite track, which goes all over the place as far as extreme music goes. There is a tidal of misery and optimism that moves from pastel clouds to the dark sea with their horizon of proto-metal and Scandinavian/European death metal. DESOLAT defines said Age of Anarchy without chaos, which I believe is the point of anarchy. So I’m feeling the unity here, presented with a palette mixture of BLACK SABBATH magic and SOILENT GREEN abrasion.