Bandcamp Famine is a record about depletion, and Soliloquium have built the whole thing around a single recurring gesture: the drop from stillness into weight. Stefan Nordström’s Stockholm project has spent a decade in the melodic death-doom that runs from Katatonia and Daylight Dies through the whole Swedish school of beautiful misery, and this self-released fourth album leans hard into the contrast at the heart of that style. The cover says it plainly, a vulture perched over a hillside that dissolves into a decaying Soviet apartment block, nature and concrete both waiting to be picked clean. It is grey, patient, urban despair, and when the record lets that despair breathe, it is genuinely moving.
The clean, atmospheric passages are where Soliloquium are at their best, and they are lovely. “Porcelain” is the clearest example and the best-sounding track on the album: broad, airy space with tasteful reverb, the frequencies balanced and unfatiguing, the guitars working in soft atmospheric textures rather than aggression, the bass pushing warm underneath. “Weight of the Unspoken” spreads generous reverb and delay into something almost ethereal, the dynamics left intact enough to float. Time and again the songs open on a spacious, plaintive, electronically-tinged calm, the clean guitars pearling out plastic and defined, Nordström’s writing genuinely melancholy rather than merely sad, and in those stretches the album earns the emotional weight it is reaching for.
The reservation arrives with the distortion, and it is a mastering choice rather than a writing one. When the heavy sections land, too many of them are pushed to maximum loudness, and the density flattens what the quiet parts set up. “Poison Well” is trimmed so hard for volume that the drum transients are choked and the bass is left characterless, purely a sub-frequency filler. On “The Healing Process,” “Själamörker” and “Imposter Syndrome” the distorted rhythm guitars stack into a low-mid wall that robs the bass of all definition and drags the whole image into the same compressed band, so that the eruption the song has been building toward hits with less impact than the restraint before it. The songs are dynamic in the writing; the master keeps undercutting that dynamism at the exact moment it should pay off. It is the old error of mistaking loud for heavy, on music that is already heavy enough in the bones.
Famine is a heartfelt, atmospheric, well-written death-doom record from a project with a real command of melancholy and a rare ear for the quiet before the fall. Fans of the Swedish melodic death-doom lineage, the Katatonia-into-October-Tide corner, will find a lot to sink into, and the clean-passage craft is a cut above. It is held back from something better only by a master that squeezes the heavy parts until they lose the dynamic punch the writing keeps setting up. When Soliloquium trust space over density, as on “Porcelain,” they are quietly excellent.
Melodic death-doom built on the drop from stillness into weight, in the Katatonia lineage. The clean, atmospheric passages are the strength: “Porcelain” is the best-sounding track, broad and airy with tasteful reverb, balanced unfatiguing frequencies, soft atmospheric guitars and a warm bass underneath, while “Weight of the Unspoken” spreads reverb and delay into something ethereal with its dynamics intact. The songs repeatedly open on spacious, plaintive, electronically-tinged calm with plastic, defined clean guitars. The reservation is the master: when the heavy sections land, too many are pushed to maximum loudness. “Poison Well” is trimmed so hard the drum transients choke and the bass goes characterless, and on “The Healing Process,” “Själamörker” and “Imposter Syndrome” the distorted guitars stack into a low-mid wall that robs the bass of definition and flattens the eruption the song built toward. Dynamic in the writing, undercut by a master that mistakes loud for heavy.
Standout tracks: Porcelain, Weight of the Unspoken, Famine
