Wartime – “Solar Messiah”

Solar Messiah is the newest release from Bulgarian progressive thrash metal act Wartime. The band has been releasing records since the mid-ninties, but I was not familiar with them before I received this latest album; and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. Solar Messiah is heavier than I would have expected from a progressive metal act and it contains lots of thrashy moments and at times, even harsher vocals than are typical of the genre.

As you might expect from a European prog-metal act all of the musicianship is stunning, but the standout on this record was the intensely insane guitar shredding: Stan “Stumpy” Stancheff is a fretboard wizard and professor of riffology. Wartime is at their best, I feel, when they are playing faster and heavier tunes. The two slowed down songs, “Memories” and “Sanity”, really didn’t do anything for me and actually I think that placed where they are in the sequence, the flow of the record was disrupted a bit.

At the end of the day I don’t feel like Wartime have reinvented the wheel, but they have created a solid album that fans of metal and especially progressive metal are sure to eat up.

Track Listing:

01. Dreams Of Pale
02. The Deepest Fear
03. Sanity
04. For One Moment In Time
05. Memories
06. Inner Sight
07. Endless Horizon
08. God’s Sun Hours
09. Solar Messiah
10. The Day Of No Return
11. Palette Of Grey

Run Time: 49:19
Release Date: December 15, 2012

Check out the song: “For One Moment in Time”