Album Graveyard: Winter Solstice - The Fall Of Rome

I promised to have the “Album Graveyard” articles going soon, and I thought that since I don’t usually like to post stuff that mean or nasty (because I’m polite), I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone.

During the mass melodic metalcore signing of 2004, one Winter Solstice managed to get hooked in with Metal Blade Records. By looking at the art and the layout of the sleeve, you can see that Metal Blade didn’t put too much money behind this band, and for good reason. They’re a cheap resource. From the simple picture for the cover, to the bare bones insert that contains only the most basic information and not much else, it just screams “high profit margin!” for Metal Blade.

I’d like to name drop bands that these guys have ripped off, but they haven’t even come close to ripping off anyone of note. The screams are typically one dimensional metalcore. There’s chugga chugga breakdowns galore. There’s sea of simplistic melodies and harmonies to sandwich those breakdowns into. The only song that comes close to bing memorable is “Malice In Wonderland”, which seems to be the only one where they decided to place all their catchy hooks into. Unfortunately, why that song wasn’t chosen for free download we won’t know, perhaps the record label choose one at random.

The low production quality and overall loose feel could actually be an endearing quality if this was a debut album of genre forging greatness.

Strangely, this album is actually an improvement over the split they did previously. It was very simplistic by comparison, and every other quality was worse. Considering the jump in quality between the two releases, one could theorize that seven albums later Winter Solstice could’ve reached the status of being mentioned in a best of for an the end of a year list.

If you can manage to download “Malice In Wonderland”, that song will provide averages moments of listening pleasure. If you get the song they posted online, then you can use it for inoffensive background music when you’re with you’re melodic metalcore buddies.

With their breakup announced, their legacy will soon be forgotten. The effect of bands like these, however, is extremely devastating. The more generic melodic metalcore bands there are, the shorter the lifespan of the genre will be.

4/10

Metal Blade Records