Solace rose in 1996 from the ashes of Atlantic Records alumni Godspeed, who appeared on the
Nativity in Black tribute backing Bruce Dickinson and made their name on Headbanger’s Ball, Beavis
& Butthead and on tour with Cathedral and Black Sabbath.
Driven by hardcore-infused metal, captivating vocals and a crushing doom underbelly, Solace issued
ferocious slabs of heaviness every few years, beginning with 2000’s Further, an album Metal Maniacs
called, “a punchy, aggressive stormride swarmed full of shadowy, melodic fume,” and CMJ dubbed, “wicked and devastatingly heavy.”
Second album 13 followed in 2003, highlighting their increasingly epic songwriting and hardcore-meets-metal-meets-doom approach. Kerrang! characterized it as:
“Mammoth, mid-paced doom epics heavy on melody and low on cheery stoner vibes… a vast, sprawling dose of bloated rifferama which manages to be both irresistibly catchy and thoroughly terrifying at the same time.” (4 Ks)
Performances at Roadburn in 2006 and 2009 and Hellfest in 2010 accelerated their momentum, culminating in the milestone album A.D.
All Music Guide called the titanic offering, “a six-string maelstrom” and iTunes ranked it in their Top 10
Metal Records of 2010 alongside High on Fire and Unearthly Trance.
Solace returned in 2017 with a reconstructed lineup, the new single ‘Bird of Ill Omen’ and a monster rendition of “In The Flesh” on Magnetic Eye Records’ Pink Floyd homage The Wall Redux. Appearing at
festivals like Descendants of Crom, Maryland Doom Fest, Vultures of Volume and New England Stoner and Doom, the time had come for a properly epic return.The blistering double LP The Brink, a glorious trek through churning riffage, weighty doom power and
drunken sea shanties, arrived in 2019. Embracing a NWOBHM dual-guitar attack more completely than ever, the album maintained Solace’s trademark volatility and reasserted their unassailable dominance as scene godfathers.
In 2025, Solace celebrate the milestone 25-year anniversary of Further, an album as crushingly
mournful, as full of otherworldly psych-doom and spellbinding heaviness and as masterfully titanic
today as when it debuted a quarter century ago. Further established that, although connected to the
stoner metal scene, Solace would always be something darker and weightier, and the heavy world has
been basking in and grappling with everything this band was, are and can be ever since.
Solace‘s next album is slated for release via Magnetic Eye in early 2026, and the band is planning a
return to Europe for the first time in over a decade.
