Despite the Rise of the Sun

Solemn Vision is a band whom I have not heard of before stumbling upon their latest album "Despite the Rise of the Sun" on YouTube. Hailing from New York and formed in the early 2010's, "Despite" is the band's second album and offers a blend of progressive and melodic death metal, clocking in at barely under an hour.

The first thing we hear on this record are the vocals, which... They are just bad. The screamed vocals are very whispery and are way too loud in the mix. Perhaps are more subtle approach and less dry approach to the vocals would have been better, with more reverb and echo and less volume. The clean vocals are slightly better, but sound amateurish at best, which is a shame because after a taking a quick glance at their previous record released in 2019, the same vocalist actually sounds great. I would assume it's a production choice, which ultimately does not favor his voice at all.

The music itself is actually fairly good, however. The band wears it's Opeth influences on it's sleeves (which is a plus for me), with creative songwriting and intersting twists and turns all over the record. Some of the riffs and sections would not have felt out of place on records such as "Morningrise" or "My Arms Your Hearse", such as the songs "Avarice", "Gates" and "On the Eve of Silence" which were my personal favorites. Songs like opener "Father From the Flame" and album closer "The Cerebral Labyrinth" show the band in a much heavier light where they also shine, bringing forward catchy riffing and melodies over blasting drums and guitarwork. The production of the record is very clean, credited to Billy Pfister; the guitar, drums and bass tones complement each other nicely and make for a heavy sounding record overall, but still very dynamic when the band slows down with acoustic guitars and occasional keyboard parts. However, I can't stress enough how badly the vocals sound on this record.

It's a shame because the music aspect of "Despite the Rise of the Sun" is great and while I mean no ill will towards the vocalist personally, he unfortunately drags this record way down. If not for the vocals this would be an album featured heavily in my 2023 rotation and would have been an incredible discovery. I hope this is a detail that would be fixed in a potential third record, and I will definitely take a look at their previous material.

Highlights:
Father From the Flame
Avarice
Gates
On the Eve of Silence
The Cerebral Labyrinth