Location: Los Angeles, California
Country: USA
Genre: Progressive thrash metal
Full length: Trails of Light
Format: Digital
Label: Independent
Release date: November 15, 2024
Does this discordant, harsh, harmonious amalgam of jazz, prog rock, hardcore and metal reflect the development of underground music? Is "Shimmer" a brand-new epic song that we need to listen to? Or does this album display a deranged imagination of some kind? Is Solar Wimp painting on a canvas that’s still largely blank? Or are all of these claims true to some extent?
Something about bands this far out of the mainstream that create unexplored and nearly impenetrable material has always had a certain appeal. The boundaries established by the earlier experimental bands appear to be further pushed by this one. Solar Wimp’s vision of "strange entities voyaging to distant unknowns within" is clearly conveyed by Ian Miller's cover artwork for "Trails of Light", and what they discover isn't what you're used to hearing.
According to guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Kerner in an Idiotec spotlight, it serves as the background music for a transformative, ritualistic departure from a world where cruelty and ignorance are becoming the norm, turning the real into dark and mystical fantasy. High-pitched vocals fitting the black metal style present esoteric lyrics as harsh as the bass and rough-edge guitars. The instrumental affectations provided by Daniel Zaidenstadt, while "Trails of Light" was recorded in a cathedral and a bedroom, give it an atmospheric and claustrophobic ambient contrast enhancing sporadic themes of transfiguration.
Euphonious guitar solos that sound traditional for the schizophrenic phrases backing them are frequently made possible by the rhythm, pace, and dispositions in these songs, which repeatedly transpose and rearrange themselves to push you closer to the world Solar Wimp creates through the songwriting. This difference in many ways supports their picture of otherworldly mysticism, with varied emphasis on instruments from song to song.
To provide just two examples, the saxophone portion of "Strand and Tether" by Patrick Shirioshi, which begins as sophisticated but gradually becomes frenzied and screeching, fueled by the drums of Mark Kimbrell (Oort Smog, Upsilon Acrux), is a huge push toward the realms of chaos and nightmare. The use of violin and trumpet in the primordial, complex, doom laden epic composition "Shimmer" dramatically expands its scope, giving it depth and breadth.
"Trails of Light" is a journey and purportedly the last in Solar Wimp’s recording history, but there’s still a lot more to explore on their Bandcamp profile, and they have fresh material in the works from their other ventures. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Jeremy Kerner: Vocals, guitar
Justin Brown: Bass
Mark Kimbrell: Drums
Additional musicians:
Patrick Shiroishi: Saxophone on "Strand and Tether"
Daniel Zaidenstadt: Violin, trumpet, synthesizer, vocals on "Shimmer"
Track list:
1. Entwined With Glass
2. Tectonic Deformation
3. Strand and Tether
4. Enhanced Iconography
5. Shimmer
6. Ceremonial Collar
7. Regula
No comments:
Post a Comment