Crikey, it doesn’t seem two minutes since I reviewed Hate’s last record, Erebos. That album was a solid enough slice of atmospheric Polish death metal, with all the hallmarks of their countrymen. Technically proficient, with a flawless presentation, though to my ears a little too close to the offerings of Behemoth to be truly original.
Solarflesh” is a much more ambitious recording. The essence of Hate is still here. The epic nature of the death metal remains, with sprawling introductions giving way to passages of esoteric or martial splendour. This time around, the electronics and atmospheric synthesiser passages have been much more artfully included into the music, presenting tremendously evocative tunes that weave a magic spell as they are played. “Sadness will last forever”, for example, is pretty much the best death metal tune to have come from Poland in the last five or six years. It has a stomping rhythm that brings to mind Samael at the height of their powers, along with some of the more deftly weaved twisted melodies that made Mithras so popular. There’s the same lingering “Eastern” flavour to the riffing, courtesy of Adam and Destroyer, while Hexen proves that he’s not to be under rated within the realms of European death metal drumming, with perhaps the most powerful yet technically proficient display of his career. Mortifer’s bass work is frequently sublime, though occasionally a little difficult to discern given how busy the sound is at parts. Adam’s vocals are also pretty much perfect here, with clarity and aggression in the delivery.
The song writing is also at a peak too, with each of the nine tracks contributing to the overall quality of the total album. Listening to Solarflesh back to back with Erebos, it’s apparent that Hate have thrown off some of the shackles of convention and felt freer to record what they like. It’s an instantly more self-assured and confident release. The production is certainly much fuller, without sounding too synthetic and false. Indeed, at times some of the more ambitious sections, such as the creeping introduction to opener “Watchful Eye of Doom” bring to mind the more ambitious and progressive moments of Celtic Frost’s career, while having the sonic clout to bring the so-called “symphonic” metal bands to shame. Listening to Solarflesh is a strangely unsettling experience, so deftly woven is the music and the atmospherics. It’s simply put quite rare for an album to make me feel uneasy while listening to it alone. This album has done that, and for that I salute Hate. A cracking album, all told.
(8.5/10 Chris Davison)
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