Left Hand Solution
Dead of Winter

It seems like Left Hand Solution think we are in the southern hemisphere of the planet as their Dead of Winter arrived in April rather than sometime during the winter. There is only small patches of snow remaining now so the summer is coming, so if you are missing AC at home when the heat of summer comes, you can get some wintery cold music to chill a little. The quartet are the same as the guys that released the previous album in 2019, an album we wrote many positive words about – I find two things a little bothering though: why no vinyl edition and why such poor covers?

I think we could use more or less the same description of style for this album as the previous, female fronted doom meta with a fairly fresh and personal sound. I like the vocals, and the sound is more alive and fresher than it was last time around. They also add dynamics through a cover song, Dolly Parton’s Jolene. It is a cover that sounds truer to the original than to the band’s style, you could of course see that as positive or a negative depending on how you want to look at it. Another thing you will note is that the playing time is quite short, something that lets all the songs take place and make none of them appear as filler tracks.

Good one, perhaps even a great one. I think it is an enjoyable release with strong tracks, it is a small step forwards compared with what we heard last time around. And while that cover song isn’t great, it adds a dynamic that is positive to the album as a whole. The best songs are the opener and the ender, the two longest tracks on the album are those that makes the strongest impression on me when I play through this album. And it is slightly better than the previous album.

A left thumb up for this great album, I think it is an impressive release. The slight negative I can think of is the cover song, it is not a great song and why couldn’t they write a song that adds dynamics themselves rather than pretty poorly covering a song. Still, that cover song is probably the reason for the dynamics that contributes to this album making a bigger mark. Definitely worth checking out.

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