AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “THE ABSOLVING TIDE”

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Jun 282022
 

 

Four years have passed since Soul Dissolution released their last album, Stardust, a phenomenal achievement that still rings in the head with lasting power. Since then we’ve had the good fortune of two further releases by this Belgian atmospheric post-black metal band, the EPs named Nowhere and Winter Contemplations, both of them delivering two long-form tracks it was very easy to get lost in. And now Soul Dissolution are returning with an eagerly awaited new full-length.

The name of the new album is SORA (a Japanese word for “sky”), and it’s described as “a conceptual work about the sky and its many facets”. We’ll still have some anxious waiting to discover what all five of its tracks do with that expansive concept, because the release won’t come until September 30th (via the band’s own Viridian Flame Records). But we do have a powerful first sign in the song we’re helping the band reveal today. The title of the song is “The Absolving Tide“, and it comes with an official video. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 30): SOUL DISSOLUTION, FREDAG DEN 13:E, VARGRAV

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Feb 202019
 

 

This is another one of those days when I’m leaning into black metal for the latest additions to this list, with a pair of songs that present different shades of black, very different formulations of music that incorporates black metal traditions, but all of them big head-movers in the moment and quite memorable in the aftermath. And in between them I’ve placed some Motörcharged scandicrust that’s equally head-moving and highly addictive.

I should mention that we’re drawing very close to the end of this series. Last year’s series ended with Part 20, and here we’re already up to Part 30. So as to give myself time this coming weekend to agonize over the final picks, I’m not going to stop this week — but at some point next week (probably early in the week), we’ll bring this 2018 list to an end. To check out everything that has preceded today’s installment, you’ll find them behind this link.

SOUL DISSOLUTION

I can’t think of a better word than “magnificent” for “Far Above the Boiling Sea of Life“. That’s the word that leaped to mind when I first heard it in advance of premiering the track in February of last year, and it’s the word that I’m left with every time I hear it — which has been often. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “FADING DARKNESS”

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Sep 282018
 

 

The song you’re about to hear is a wonderful surprise, in more ways than one. Before you get into the music, the outer trappings of the record might begin to form certain expectations — which ultimately become up-ended by the time the song ends.

You gaze at the cover of this EP, a photograph taken in May (by the band’s guitarist, bassist, and backing vocalist) on a misty morning in the Vosges region, France. You consider that the name of this Belgian band is Soul Dissolution, that the name of the song itself refers to darkness, and that the EP which includes it (set for release on October 18th) is named nowhere. And from all that, you might surmise that thoroughly gloomy and melancholy sounds are about to come your way. And at first, the music seems consistent with those expectations. At first. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: SOUL DISSOLUTION — “FAR ABOVE THE BOILING SEA OF LIFE”

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Feb 092018
 

 

The photograph that appears on the cover of Stardust, the new album by the Belgian black metal band Soul Dissolution, is beautiful, otherworldly, and haunting. You can imagine standing on that cold, craggy shore, gazing in wonder as the sea becomes illuminated by a column of celestial light, as if a window on the cosmos has been mysteriously opened and what was once inexpressibly distant has now been brought near.

It’s not the cover art alone that might make listeners feel a sense of wonder, or to become rhapsodic in their reactions to the album. The music has a similar effect, as you’ll soon discover: Today we open a window into Stardust’s own celestial vistas in advance of its March 25 release by Black Lion Records through our premiere of the album’s closing track, “Far Above the Boiling Sea of Life“. Continue reading »