Hour of Anguish – Solace of Sorrow

Hour of Anguish is an almost brand new Melodic Death Metal band, formed and presently consisting of a Swedish duet named Richard Lee and Andreas Henriksson. While those names mean absolutely nothing to me, after having listened to their first ever release (Solace of Sorrow), I believe that I have realized what they are hoping to achieve. Hour of Anguish has taken a lot of lessons from older, more well-established bands and kinsmen from within their genre (most noticeably bands such as In Flames, Soilwork and Dark Tranquility), yet still done what they can in order to make themselves stand out. This has primarily been done by adding a clean vocals track to all eleven songs present on Solace of Sorrow – Not a bad idea, since it definitely adds another dimension. The lack of experience compared to the other mentioned Melodic Death Metal acts is rather obvious, however, since their tracks are a bit more monotonous and less widespread in their musical range than I perhaps would have liked. That being said, however, tracks such as ”Sepia” are fantastic, both in their sheer presence and due to how catchy it is. Overall the record lasts fifty minutes, which are distributed more or less evenly across all eleven tracks. This makes Solace of Sorrow a very easy album to pick up and to put down again – Not the best album of its genre, but a very impressive first rendition from the new up-and-coming band Hour of Anguish. Sadly, I could not find ”Sepia” on YouTube – Perhaps for the best, since it is probably the single-most heavily influenced track on the whole album (in this case from In Flames). Below you can find the track ”Ouroboros”, which more readily shows and helps define what Hour of Anguish is all about, and probably gives a good idea as to what we can expect so hear from them from the future.

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