Band:	Solace Of Requiem
Album:	Casting Ruin
Style:	Black metal, Technical death metal
Release date:	August 2014

01. Defiling The Spectrum
02. Casting Ruin
03. Soiling The Fields Of Putridity
04. Song Of Shards
05. Wading Into Mire
06. Eroded Absolution
07. Heaving Bile And Ash
08. Pools Of Ablation
09. Bio-Alchemy

It took me a lot of thought to determine my true impression of this album. It's not as though Solace Of Requiem play such an esoteric style of music that I couldn't comprehend it; but sometimes I find it difficult to ascertain just what kind of an atmosphere they are aiming for, and how often I hear Solace Of Requiem versus how often I try to hear other bands in them.

While their skills as musicians are certainly not in doubt, Solace Of Requiem come off as high-octane yet somehow toothless. The bass and guitar parts often muddle and disappear beneath layers of distortion, and the whole album has a slight grunginess to it that in some ways hearkens back to the death metal forefathers, but in other ways makes the album sound unfocused or sloppy. In many places, the drums sound programmed - though they do evidently have a human drummer, so take that as you will. There are some intimidating Nile-ish riffs to be had, however, and when they kick into deep growls and flurries of double-bass, they can pack a punch.

Some elements just seem out of place. The solos from "Song Of Shards" and "Wading Into Mire," for example, sound like they got lost on the way to a Van Halen song, which you'll notice is an unusual thing to say about tech death. Some clownish, congested keyboards, probably intended to blacken up the atmosphere a bit and add some eerie dimensions, awkwardly sit in the background from time to time. For whatever reason, I find it hard to buy the black metal moments. They appear rather infrequently, despite the band being marketed as a black/tech death band, and though they are just as strong as the rest of the album, something about the change of mentality is off-putting. I sometimes find myself unsure of how to receive Casting Ruin, and of whether I enjoy it or not.

"Soiling The Fields Of Putridity" and "Pools Of Ablaton" put me in mind of Gorguts, Necrophagist, or some other giants of tech death. During the peak moments, Casting Ruin can be thoughtful, groovy, and intriguing all at once. The peak moments come infrequently, however, and the rest of the album falls somewhere between generic and passable. I suspect that this album will grow on me with time, but for now I regard them as an awkwardly mid-tier death metal band that I would soon forget about were it not for the fact that I now own this album.