Top 5 On Friday – Ranking the 5 Solace albums

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · December 6, 2024

Solace is a heavy/ doom metal band originating in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The band formed in 1996 and the only original member left is songwriter and guitarist Tommy Southard. The current lineup (I believe) consists of Justin Daniels on guitar, Tim Schoenleber on drums, Mike Sica on bass, Justin Goins on vocals, and Southard on guitar. I discovered Solace in the early stoner rock dot com days and have been a huge fan from the first time I heard the band. At that time, the band had three releases available, their debut, 2000’s Further, 2003’s 13, and the 2004’s Blackmarket/ Hammerhead Split with Greatdayforup. I believe I discovered Solace in 2005. They quickly elevated to one of my favorite bands and I was lucky enough to see them play live twice in the Cambridge/ Boston, Massachusetts area. Their sound is so devastating! The heavy guitar riff driven songs are pronounced by their excellent dual guitar leads and solos, with thunderous drums, and awesome vocals. The band has never released a subpar recording. Today, I am going to rank their five albums (one could be considered an EP) in my order of least to best. As I have stated in my Truckfighters (review here) and Red Fang (review here) ranking reviews, the order can change on any given day. Solace has been plagued with a series of bad luck streaks in their career as a band, but in anticipation of a new album in 2025, my hope is that the bad times are behind them. They are also doing a small tour the end of 2024 and into 2025. Fingers crossed that we will indeed hear some new material from such an important and amazing band. Anyways, here’s my review of their five albums (mostly) and the order is subject to change.

5. 13

The band released 13 in 2003 on Meteor City Records. This was Solace’s second full length album and it contains 13 songs. I love this record! “Loving Sickness/ Burning Fuel” is a killer opening track that has amazing harmonica parts on it with crushing riffs through and through. So many great songs like “Indolence”, “King Alcohol”, “Once Around The Sun” “Try”, and Sled Heavy”. They do a song with the legendary Wino on lead vocals entitled “Common Cause”. My few complaints is that they have some filler noises and unnecessary things on the album. For one, they have a huge gap of empty space on the final track “Shit Kisser” and the track “Theme” is just pointless feedback noise. They also have two cover songs “Forever My Queen” from Pentagram and “With Time” from Agnostic Front, both awesome versions, but I find it a little distracting from the rest of the album. I know I’m being super critical but that’s why this album ranks as number five for me. I do love all of their original songs though and I guess I just needed a reason for this criticism.

4. FURTHER

The debut album from Solace is 2000’s Further released on Meteor City Records. I love this record a lot! Some of my favorites are: “Man Dog”, “Black Unholy Ground”, “Whistle Pig”, “Hungry Mother”, “Suspicious Tower”, and “Heavy Birth/ 2 Fisted”. All of the songs are great and this record started it all for me. It was the first Solace album I got and I just went nuts after that!

3. THE BLACK BLACK

This could technically be classified as an EP, boasting only four songs, but it is thirty three minutes long. The anticipation for new Solace material was at an all time high awaiting what was supposed to be a third album called A.D. However, the band had too many tracks and decided to separate a chunk to make this release, to coincide with a tour they were doing. This originally came out on Underdogma Records in 2007. The three original songs on this “EP” are some of Solace’s finest. “Khan (World Of Fire)”, “Destroy The Gift”, and “The Devil’s Clock” are so ridiculously good that it’s criminal that this band wasn’t huge by this point.

2. THE BRINK

I have to admit, when I heard that Solace was carrying on without Jason on vocals, I was very skeptical. He has one of the finest voices ever, in my opinion. So when The Brink came out in 2019 on Blues Funeral Recordings, I didn’t set my hopes very high. However, after I listened to the album with an open mind, I was completely blown away! Justin Goins did a fantastic job and is a very suitable replacement for Jason. Solace, as a band, delivered an exceptional album with great songs like “Breaker Of The Way”, “Desert Coffin”, “Dead Sailors Dream”, “Waste People”, “The Light Is A Lie”, and “Crushing Black”, to name some. This album solidified all of my reasons on why this band is one of the greatest. I am completely excited on what the next release is going to sound like, based on how good The Brink is.

1. A.D.

Finally, my number one pick from such an incredible and underrated band is 2010’s Small Stone Records release, A. D. Based on my anticipation and thirst to hear more from Solace after the Black Black EP came out, A. D. delivered in a monumental way. The wait was finally over and the band destroyed everything in its path with this one. Easily my album of the year and an all around masterpiece. A.D. features great songs like “The Disillusioned Prophet”, “Six Year Trainwreck”, “Down South Dog”, “The Eyes Of The Vulture”, the viscous “The Skull Of The Head Of Man”, and the absolute genius “From Below”. Everything about this album sounded right at the time, and it still does!

Thanks for reading my top five Solace albums ranked in order (for the most part). I absolutely love this band and really hope that they will finally get the recognition that they deserve. Go see them live if you ever get a chance. They will absolutely blow you away! It is very difficult to rate these albums in order because they are all gems in my eyes, and ears. Please do yourself a favor and support this band. Cheers!