SOLACE offer a doom-laden glimpse of vintage heavy metal with the final advance track, ‘Malengine (The Scaffold)’, taken from their highly anticipated fifth full-length Fading Failing Ruin that is set for release on July 3, 2026.
SOLACE comment: “When I came up with the opening riff to ‘Malengine’, I really liked it”, guitarist Tommy Southard declares and explains: “The song felt moody and doomy with a certain sorrowful tone, but when I brought it to the band they had a hard time wrapping their heads around it. I guess it was in an odd time signature. Our other guitarist Justin presented it to some friends with deep formal knowledge of music, and they analysed that the first half of the riff is in 9/8 and the second half is 11/8! Once everyone had figured out the groove of the riff, the song really started taking shape. I really love all the twists and turns. It’s got doom. It’s got some metal flourishes and a killer kinda psych section. It went from maybe a song that wasn’t going to work to the final composition turning out as one of my faves songs on Fading Falling Ruin. This track comes with almost every element that makes Solace who we are. I sincerely hope people find it as interesting as we do.”
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SOLACE deliver their fifth studio album Fading Failing Ruin just in time to celebrate the anniversary of their 30th year as a band. And all the heaviness, experience, and obvious maturity of their songwriting across three decades is perfectly reflected in the seeming ease with which these master craftsmen hammer out one captivating and crushing track after the other.
Revolving around apocalyptic, infernal, and end time themes that easily fit this day and age, Fading Failing Ruin nails the current global mood by taking a strong dose of inspiration from the earliest days of metal and blending it with contemporary heaviness.
A direct link goes back to 1996, when SOLACE rose from the ashes of GODSPEED, who made their name on Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis & Butthead, appeared on the Nativity in Black tribute backing Bruce Dickinson, and toured with CATHEDRAL and BLACK SABBATH. Emerging at the dawn of the internet and the burgeoning stoner rock scene, SOLACE were driven by hardcore-infused metal, captivating vocals, and a dark doom underbelly.
The New Jersey band hit the scene with their ferocious debut Further in 2000. Its tracks remain as contemporary and relevant as in those early days, and an extended and re-mastered 25th anniversary edition became an unplanned but much deserved tribute to brilliant yet tortured original SOLACE vocalist Jason L., who had sadly passed away in January 2025.
SOLACE continued to build on a solid foundation of classic metal, early doom, and punk ethic into which the four-piece infused a healthy dose of hardcore fury and groovy, grinding sludge.
Three years after the worldwide success of Further, SOLACE returned with the sophomore album 13 (2003), which highlighted the epic side of their songwriting. In the wake of this album, the band was invited twice to perform at the prestigious Roadburn Festival in 2006 and 2009.
The shoremen returned with their highly praised third album A.D. in 2010. Despite the band’s growing acclaim, SOLACE took an informal hiatus to revamp their lineup, returning even stronger with full-length number four, The Brink, in 2019.
SOLACE have called their amalgamation of doom and heavy metal with hardcore elements dirt metal, while elsewhere it has been somewhat tongue-in-cheekily dubbed shorecore. Others file the New Jersey five-piece under stoner metal – and in truth, all these descriptions have and still fit the band to an extent.
With Fading Failing Ruin, SOLACE erect a new milestone of US heavy metal that respects traditions from both sides of the Atlantic while churning toward a chaotic future. Time to bang those heads!
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Aural Aggravation 