Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another album review! This time I bring for your ear holes an instrumental album from Cameron Losch the drummer of Born of Osiris. His moniker for this project is Unsolicited and the album is called Life Energies which released on March 28th, 2025. The first time I was listening to this was at 3 AM at work while doing inventory, it really made smile a few times and stop to listen to exactly what the hell was going on!
Cameron posted this album in the death metal sharing group and I’m glad I saw it. I saw someone refer to this album as “Mario Kart lobby death metal music” and it really fits quite well! Promenade at Dusk is a perfect example of this in my opinion. It has this perfect groove that would be excellent while selecting a racer or character in a game. This may be the most chill and relaxed track in the album by far and it’s great.
This album is incredibly melodic and catchy from the moment it starts. He also does a fantastic job of switching sections very smoothly, just when you think he will continue on a certain idea, he says “nope we’re going this way” and surprises the listener. The perfect example of this is in the second track Eater of Eternity, it starts with this motif that is so relaxed and calm. The second it builds up it gets morphed into this hyper fast almost thrash like passage, then it get turns into a royal theme before breaking down into a passage that would make any deathcore band blush!
It has moments that really remind of his main band Born of Osiris or BOO as they are commonly referred to in short hand. Initially I didn’t really know that this had anything to do with BOO, but got a few subtle nudges in that direction. One of them being the breakdown in the albums title track Life Energies. The breakdown and subsequent passages starting at the 1:38 mark really sound like patented BOO stuff. The synths over top and the rhythms really scream the band. I’m glad that he showed some of that off but really branched way out from his main band and showed his creativity. Now if he could somehow incorporate some of this progressive and melodic elements with BOO I would go back to loving them, but this is not an article critiquing them!
Giants in an Effigy is the closing track of this album and it has many qualities that I really love. It starts off with this almost circus or polka theme that I could imagine being in a Nintendo 64 era platforming game like Banjo-Kazooie. But this is switched in an instant to some shredding guitar with keyboard paralleling it. After this a djent fueled guitar is underneath that before circling into a breakdown!
Instrumental music is something that I typically do not incorporate into my usually musical rotation, but visiting this from time to time will be on my agenda. Overall I would give this a 8/10. It’s a very solid release but not something I will have constantly in my ears. As always do not forget to stream and even buy this album if you like! Links to streaming will be listed below.
https://unsolicited.bandcamp.com/album/life-energies
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kxJl8ol9urP8JhfsYbkBXpw7hNzdTVbUw&si=mckzZQZ49WsWWzE3
https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0DG6L2MV6?ref=dm_ff_amazonmusic.3p&tag=featurefm-20
https://music.apple.com/us/album/life-energies/1799973586
Life Energies by Unsolicited
