Review Summary: An album from fellow sputnikers...
Instrumental bands, I find, are generally hit or miss; they can both make a hit and run with it, or they fail miserably. Solterra manages to get a hit, and delivers an above average collection of songs on their self-titled EP.
Consisting of six songs the overall feel to this album is quite relaxing. Despite having more than its fair share of heavy songs you cannot help but feel more at peace when digging into these tracks. The mood is very dreamy and spacy, almost making you want to fall asleep to the riffs. This dream like effect is most notable on Delayed Reactions and Spanish Beaches.
Moving on to the overall sound, it is heavy and it is technical. (That may seem kind of blunt but alas that would be the best way to describe it.) The album itself really gives you a feeling that the music is always moving forward and the way that each track slides into the other really helps with this effect. I’d say the only song that feels out of place is Affluenza, but the song stands well enough on its own that it does not cause any blemishes to the overall album.
The length of these tracks can sometimes leave something more to be desired. While almost half of the songs are over four minutes long; the shorter tracks feel as if they could and should be longer, Spanish Disco being a prime example of this. If they were a tad longer then the album would feel more complete as a whole. Whereas the shorter tracks are too short the rest (longer songs) feel just right.
As far as talent, all musicians present are great. Every instrument comes together nicely and efficiently to the point of no obvious flaws. Although they lack in the ability to really blow your mind, which keeps this from being anything more than it is. As said before it’s not as if any one present is mediocre, it’s more a case of that it’s just not expert musicianship. (Although with more time I’m sure the talent will improve greatly.) That being said this shouldn’t bother anyone, except of those who expect massive, technical, behemoth songs, that are chalk full of solos and odd time signatures.
Perhaps Solterra will one day truly live up to what they could be. For right now, though, they remain a great progressive band that has truly showed that they can be so much more on a future release.
