Soulfallen are a four piece Melodic Death/Black Metal band from Finland, formed around 2003 and previously known as Blacksmith. The band released 2 demos which got them signed to Off Records and through them they eventually released their debut album
World Expiration in 2007.
Band Lineup:
Kai Leikola - Vocals/Bass
Marko Cieslak - Guitars
Aapeli Kivimäki - Guitars
Jimmy Salmi – Drums
The band’s lyrical theme being about tyranny and the fall of man, they try to paint an image of darkness and with darkness they bring emotions such as sorrow, hatred, grief and despair into their music. Bearing in mind that this is just a debut, I must say that the band has done a more than excellent job of mixing their dark lyrics with their even darker music.
One thing that definitely stands out about the band is the varying vocals. Kai Leikola provides both deep death metal growls and black metal screams, usually interchanging between them in songs but keeping mostly to his death metal growls for the closing track,
No More Than Thieves, one of the highlight songs of the album.
Kai Leikola is definitely a very talented vocalist but the same cannot be said about his bass work as you won’t be hearing much of it through out the album. As for the other music, what the band does is that they use their guitars and keyboards each to inject different emotions into their songs. The keyboard works in all of the songs helps set the stage for the guitars to take the center whilst the mid tempo drumming is there to compliment the other instruments in the background. As you can tell from their genre, the guitar works are very melodic but they are also what help set the dark tone for the songs. Say for example in the song,
Death of the Tyrant, the keys are used to set a haunting mood whilst the riffs blaze through out the song filled with anger and hate accompanied by the lead coming in with melodies both sad and full of despair until the solo comes in which is like a release of all their pent up musical aggression.
Although, they are Melodic Death/Black they show us that they can be more than that with what is one of the best tracks on the album. In
No More Than Thieves, the band almost completely leaves out the black metal screaming but in place of them there are female vocals, there to bring a soothing nature to the song. The riffing in the song is slower than usual, any slower and they’d be walking on doom metal territory, and also the piano in the background along with the female vocals make the song sound very gothic.
With their debut the band set out to make music that plays with the darker side of human emotions and they did just that using some excellent guitar leads and solos accompanied by some nice vocal work. Not only did they accomplish what they set out to do but they also showed us that they have the ability and craftsmanship to progress further with their sound which will definitely leave listeners, who like the album, eagerly anticipating their next release.
Recommended Tracks:
No More Than Thieves
Death of the Tyrant
Third Day Of The Eclipse
“Lay down and embrace the deathlong sleep
For time has come for this crop to be reaped”
