Soen – Memorial
9/10
I am not one for normally liking anything that is labelled progressive. To me this is to intricate and demands to much energy and time to understand. Music for me is about enjoyment. I play no instrument; I sing loud in the car, but I cannot identify as anything close to a musician. I can however identify as an avid listener of music.
Soen is described as a progressive metal band more or less on every platform, every review I can find. So be it then. I still like it. Soen has a fantastic feeling for melodies and incorporating emotion in the music, deliver that emotion to the listener with ease.
The easy access melodies combined with Joel Eklöf´s amazing voice and tone is absolutely lovely.
But you have some quite mainstream references. The second song “Unbreakable” sounds to me just like Metallica´s “Sad But True” with the tempo, the pounding drums and the composition of the song as a whole.
“Sincere” that starts the album is a cool rock number with great melodies and again a riff that I think would fit on Metallica´s black album.
Engaging the listener in every song with great hooks, riffs, precise drumming and well-adjusted keyboards bodes for an enjoyable 40 minutes experience here. Tempo is quite slow during the whole album, but heavy. You can feel the density all the way.
I love Joel Eklöf´s clean vocals, they stand out and suit the music like a glove. If there is anything that I can feel a little bit, a smidgeon annoyed with on this album is that he is trying to take a more razor-sharp voice here and there. Don´t do that to such a beautiful, clean and emotionally charged voice. In my mind, the clean voice offers so much more and needs to stay all the tine in my opinion.
My standout track of the album is the dark, slow, and haunting song “Hollowed” that is a duet with singer Elisa (that is all the information I have). Here Eklöf´s and Elisa´s voices shine bright in the dark song. Almost the best 4 minutes of music in 2023 so far.
I am glad that I found Soen some years ago, and that they deliver quality music with their releases, all of them in my book. I am also glad that even if this is not my normally preferred genre, I admit I love it.
Band: Soen
Title: Memorial
Label: Silver Linin/Warner
Date of release: 2023-09-01
Rate: 9/10
Stand Out Track: Hollowed
Country of Origin: Sweden
Playing Time: 43:01
