Age of the Solipsist

Martin Haumann has participated in a few other projects that I know of, but being a live member of Myrkur and Afsky didn’t really prepare me for this melodeath collaboration with a big name like Steve DiGiorgio on bass and Frederik Jensen playing guitar. The drumming Dane seems to have done much of the work behind Mother Of All himself, which makes Age of the Solipsist an even nicer surprise given that some of this material is creative and red-hot. I’ll try not to froth too much about what is actually a 29 minute album of rather patchworked melodic death, but the good bits are too good to be ignored.

I’ll skip straight to ‘We Don’t Agree’ and say why this song is the best number that The Haunted never wrote in their early ‘00s heyday. In the first place, the chorus groove and lyrical thrusts could get any idiot on their feet headbanging; furthermore, the technical changes that link the sections really give it an unpredictable energy that goes far beyond bonehead Scando-thrash. Then again, the break that begins at 1:35 (and slams into full play with an ecstatic drum fill at 1:43) fills me with the kind of adrenaline that makes me pull the doors off fridges and punch buses. Haumann’s punchy shout has a certain Peter Dolving hardcore tint to it, just a little raspier, and the chunky production on the guitars makes a few other songs comparable to rEVOLVEr-era The Haunted too. Occasionally, the technical elements overshadow the impulsive riffing, such as the rather messy twists near the tail of ‘Curators of Our World Scope’, which might lead some to address Mother Of All as fans of Arsis, though there’s fare here for both the thinker and the ship-sinker.

The more progressive tracks like ‘Autumn’ better display what the trio are capable of when expanding their range. That opener wastes no time getting down to business despite starting with acoustic guitar, actually using it to play the first riff before the distortion gets turned on for the second one. As the longest song, ‘Autumn’ exhibits how much this group can squeeze into 5 minutes, so the short length of the album can be somewhat excused. Then again, I’m still left with a hunger when ‘Feel the Pain’ draws to a close. Perhaps the most satisfying legacy from Age of the Solipsist other than the momentary thrills of ‘We Don’t Agree’ comes from the melodies. A couple that arrive in different forms can be found on the title track and ‘At the Edge of a Dream’: the former contains a whirling motif that feels familiar even on first listen, as if In Flames might have thought of it long ago, while the latter proves extremely distinctive, DiGiorgio’s bass blubbing up around a lilting tremolo that swoons within the structure of pounding grooves which form the majority of the song. Another great break in the middle of ‘At the Edge of a Dream’ marks that as another of my favourites here.

What I think attracts me more to Mother Of All than usual is how the blend of melodeath features work great together without specifically aping the style of one strand of the genre. You have your melodies like In Flames mastered in their first few years, some raging bangers that At The Gates and their later splinter bands would have been proud to put their names to, and plenty of technical sections that don’t often require a knowledge of time signatures to appreciate. That gives an impression of freedom and creativity that I don’t always hear from more established bands nor many new ones. In short, melodeath hasn’t been that innovative in the last several years, but on the strength of this first full-length from Martin Haumann and friends there are still plenty of possibilities for the genre. Extremely diverting.