Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review, this time featuring the band Soulmirror. Their album I Am came out on August 22, 2024. They actually reached out to us via email and asked us if we would review their album. I gladly obliged, I am always down to listen to new music and give it a listen. They’re a new deathcore band from New England, this is their debut.
The band sites inspirations from bands like Carnifex, Thy Art is Murder and Angelmaker. To me I hear Carnifex because of the keyboard/synth sounds all over the place! The band has a great sound and really kept my ears engaged as the album went along. The guitar riffs are nice with variety throughout. The bass wasn’t very present in a large majority of the album, but what I could hear was nice! The vocals on this album again have a nice variety. The mid level vocals are primarily featured with low growls and higher shrieks as nice accents.
One of the things that sticks out as soon as I listen to this album is the quality of the drummer. His technique is very good! He holds down the grooves very well and adds really nice details as well. Not just the technique in the drumming is great, but even the overall sound of every hit is fantastic. I feel like the drums have a huge power and depth on every single note that they play. This is very interesting because they used an Electronic Kit to record everything on drums. Mostly recorded in longer takes to make the whole album feel more natural.
The Root, The Rot is my favorite track on this album. It starts with this guitar part that has little to no distortion. That quickly turns into a tremolo filled guitar riff with drums and bass joining. Then some frantic double bass is added into the mix with some high vocals that descends. The main riff of this song has a very melodic and thrashy feel to it. Right after this a synth is added to the mix as a kind of embellishment to the whole riff. Soon after a djenty riff is brought in as a chorus. This pattern repeats again but the next time a shredding guitar solo follows the chorus. It is a well done solo with very nice variety, shredding and slower beautiful moments as well. Right after this there is a breakdown that has a melodic sort of riff that breaks up the chugginess of the breakdown. As it moves on it slow builds into the chorus which ultimately ends the track.
The Storm is the finale of the album and is the bands most streamed song according to Apple Music. I gave that a listen after I initially gave the album a listen! It starts off with some foreboding synth before the rest of the instruments come into the track. It starts off with frantic double bass drum and guitar playing. When the vocals come in the guitar riff the guitar riff is lost a little bit in the mix behind the drums and synth. After this initial section the song is built up a bit with a halftime feel of the original riff right after this there is a crushing slow breakdown that would make anybody headbang. The other notable thing to me about the closing track is the ending of the album. The last 30 seconds are another rendition of the breakdown, and it’s a great way to end the album just out of absolutely no where. It just makes the listener want more.
My main complaint about this album is that the synth parts seem to overtake the guitar in quite a few sections of the album. All I can hear are vocals, drums and synth during those section. The bass and guitar are one hundred percent lost and that really discourages me as a listener. One example of this is actually in The Root, The Rot at :54. They set up this really riff and run through it a few times. Then this synth sound comes in and completely covers up the guitar work. I feel like this even happens during breakdowns sometimes as well.
Other than not being able to hear the guitars during moments of the album, this is a VERY solid debut. I have been out of the deathcore “loop” if you will, but find an album or two a year that I really like and this is one from last year that I do like. I would give this album a 7/10 for my personal rankings. It’s a good album, but it’s missing some polishing(and maybe a mixing?) to bring it up a little higher. As always if you like or even love this band, please buy their music! Links to all of their socials and streaming services will be listed below!
https://www.facebook.com/SoulmirrorUS1
