Ion Dissonance – Solace
To this day I remember discovering these guys. I was craving for Mathcore and diverse extreme music in general more and more at this time, until I would finally stumble over their debut ‘Breathing is Irrelevant’. I was hooked. Shortly after they put up a demo of ‘She’s Strychnine’ on this website called hxcmp3.com. Not sure if anyone remembers it? However, that demo was just blowing me away. I was speechless and amazed beyond belief. Even the sound of it was so freaking pummeling, I just couldn’t wait for ‘Solace’ to finally come out.
And fuck, this album still is just relentless as it ever was. Its brutality doesn’t wear out. ‘Solace’ has been released almost 9 years ago and no matter how many times I’m listening to it, it hits just as hard. Even after all these years, you propably still fail to remember each and every twist and turn of this spazzy rollercoaster ride, no matter how many times you have listened to it. The opening track grabs you by the throat and churns you, till ex-vocalist Gab kindly recommends you to kill yourself for someone you love. And if you ain’t got the balls to do that, the following breakdown has got them. It just throws you down and starts stomping on you like a jackhammer. Intense. The breakdown in the upcoming track – ‘O.A.S.D.’ – hits even harder, with staccato explosions and thrown-in discordant outbursts. The great thing about those breakdowns is, that they aren’t dumbed down or super simple, but mostly quite challenging themselves. They are still pretty spazzy, so they blend in very well, without even trying to please the mosh kids really. They are very welcome within all the mayhem and help you to stay focused. I love the vocals on ‘Solace’, too. They are far from being technically perfect, but they sound so angry and intense. Just real, in a way. This guy seems to let out his anger, instead of focussing on techniques. For good! Oh, and this guy definitely was a good lyric writer. With ‘She’s Strychnine’, ‘Lecturing Raskolnikov (or How to Properly Stab an Old Widow)’ and ‘Shut Up, I’m Trying to Worry’ we’ve got some more of my personal highlights, before the album is slowly coming to an end, with a much more drawn out track, that clocks in at about 11 min. I always thought this one was cool, but it never really blew me away completely. However, it’s a nice change of pace after 9 tracks of spazzy violence, that’s for sure.
I can’t praise Ion Dissonance and this album enough. For me, this is the embodiment and absolute peak of discordant Mathcore. Unrivaled, at that. I know, a lot of people might say ‘Calculating Infinity’ would be the most important and genre-defining album, but to me it’s ‘Solace’, without a doubt. Its downtuned, spazzy violence and over the top brutality has yet to be overshadowed, but I don’t believe that this will ever happen. Solace has raised the bar to an untouchable level, at least in my opinion.
