When a project announces itself as featuring members of Deftones, Cypress Hill and Sikth there’s only one question; which members? Given the bands in question, you could get some very interesting answers. Although it’s possible to play a Fantasy Football style game swapping around different lineups and imagining just what sounds they might make, it’s unlikely you’d come up with the sound of Sol Invicto, and that’s their greatest strength. So, without further ado…
Formed as a sort of secret society by producer/guitarist Richie Londres, Sol Invicto’s lineup is rounded out by Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter, Cypress Hill’s percussionist Eric Bobo with Sikth’s Dan Foord on drums and vocals from Sean Plague of Plague To Pyres. This means their debut EP offers three slices of alternative death metal. It’s a sound where the double bass drum, bassy guitar chugging, and low roared vocals create a thick, chewy sound and might bring to mind bands like Meshuggah, Fear Factory, or even Miseration.
While a first listen is like getting caught in a herd of stampeding bulls if you listen close you soon realise the sound is far from one dimensional, and, because it’s mixed by Periphery’s Nolly Getgood, there’s a finesse and depths to the songs that make all three a delight.
Given the members’ backgrounds are in progressive hip-hop, tech-metal and nu-metal bands, it’s unsurprising how many ideas are crammed into each song. Although the distinctive chugging sound of Stephen Carpenter’s guitars brings to mind Deftones’ heaviest cuts, it’s the spaces and slides on the biting ‘Lost In Translation’ that are most impressive. Indeed, this song proves to be the most instructive as it features a breakdown where the heaviness peels back, revealing what’s underneath and allowing the Latin-flavour percussion to take centre stage. Similarly glittering electronics underneath ‘The Obvious Play’ work against the intensity to give it restless, dangerous energy. This is where you really see what the band is about. That said, the ‘Revelation Of The Method’ is absolutely bruising. It opens with incredibly tense couple of minutes, but then begins to breathe, opening and closing like a pair of evil bellows, carefully squeezing out gasps of intensity. Yet even here there is a delicate electronic soundscape flowing beneath it that gives it a sense of depth and scale.
As project that includes two drummers including someone as competent as Foord, you can’t help but count along, trying to work out just what they’re doing, especially during the epic breakdown that lands around the 4-minute mark of ‘The Obvious Play’ which scrapes, thuds and thunders and might just give you concussion.
Because of the type of music, and even running at 14 minutes, the three tracks feel like a mere taste of what this band can do. All three have trance-like rhythms but there isn’t quite enough to lose yourself in, making it a tease for what they’re promising. As it stands, ‘Loosely Aware’ is a short but storming taste of Sol Invicto’s potential.
IAN KENWORTHY