Album Review - The Demon's House

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of Metal Debate podcast with the new release by French technical deathcore band Solar Eruption with their debut The Demon's House. If you are a fan of a band like Shadow of Intent, this is definitely for you. "Red Room" is the name of the crushing first track on this album. Right away we are thrown into rapid fire blast beats and fast vocal delivery. There is a slight symphonic feel along with the very futuristic sounding guitar work. I enjoy those moments a lot when guitarists Jo Drgt and Flo Hoareau give us the finger tapping technique. They are fun to listen to and unique when compared to the monotonous chugs or regular deathcore bands. We have another heavy song titled "U.F.O." which features vocalist Dan Watson. The biggest highlight of this song is its breakdown where all the music stops, the vocals continue but the rest of the band comes back with a vengeance almost bringing us into slam territory. Moving onto the next two tracks, the band has treated their fans to a double music video for their songs "Bloody Mary" and "Suffocation". I can see why they did this as "Bloody Mary" is a full song but "Suffocation" is only a 30 second follow-up. "Bloody Mary" is even heavier than the last. The main vocalist gives it his all as well as Asmo Ctr who hits us with those nasty gutturals. For those 30 seconds of "Suffocation" we get pure musical chaos. Hell is unleashed through a blast of harsh vocals and the rest of the band giving our ears as much intensity as possible. The next track is "Smoke in my Head". It begins with a beautiful piano intro followed by some gnarly vocals which flow surprisingly well together. The high pitched screeching vocals never overstay their welcome and provide listeners with and extra hellish tone. "Fatal Abduction" taking things in a different direction with a more symphonic approach which will no doubt give you some Septicflesh vibes. This goes on for a while but will still give you that deathcore screaming and machine gun blast beats you came for. After the halfway point we get three separate breakdowns to keep us invested. "Price to Pay" was a song that was released as a single over a year ago but found its way to the full-length. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this one, it definitely deserves to be here. "Kuchisake-Onna" is a song that gives us a nice guitar solo. On the subject of instruments, one band member I have not talked about is bassist Alex Mzy. The first few seconds of "Coincidence of the Matter" shows off his skills. 30 seconds in and we hear one of the two vocalists pig squealing as part of his harsh gutturals. The ending breakdown has a stop and start pattern where the music chugs in and out with vocals just another instrument and addition to the slams. Next on the list of extreme activities seems to be breaking out of a maximum security prison with "The Great Escape". The first minute + is the sound of a buzzer and jail bars sliding open followed by a man panting while freeing himself of chains along with loud footsteps. Once the intro is over, the remaining 6 minutes pummels your ear drums with a cacophony of blast beats, 7 string guitar riffs and vocals. Nothing but pure chaos for the duration. As we get closer to the end of this record we get more technical with the guitar playing for the song "Dust". Personally I enjoy the audible breaths before the breakdown in this one. The last track "We Are Enemies" wastes absolutely zero time before annihilating your ears. It's a short, crushing and symphonic conclusion. The Demon's House is a release that musically and vocally surpasses most of the generic deathcore the mainstream has to offer. Deathcore isn't my favorite genre but I can acknowledge the amount of effort that went into the making of this album. I'm going to give these guys a 7 - the symphonic elements make this an enjoyable listening experience.