INTERVIEW: Solothus

Finland’s SOLOTHUS unveiled a masterpiece of Death-Doom early in 2020. Now with the world in chaos, I had a talk to their vocalist Kari.

1. First up, let’s talk about your homeland. I recently saw SOLOTHUS perform at Finnfest and what a showcase of Finnish Death Metal might that was all-round. With an abundance of phenomenal Black and Death Metal in Finland, does it become more challenging to stand out and get noticed? Or does being Finnish make it easier as people will just assume the band is good on this merit?

Kari: Finnfest was one damn crazy festival! Alex and Cris are such maniacs for making a event like that! It was also our first gig in London, even though we have already done two tours in the UK. The scene in Finland is not really that big, so if you have good songs and a good thing going, you will be noticed eventually. Because of the past with the legends of Finnish Death Metal, people used to pay a lot of attention on bands coming from over here, but I think that the hype has died out a bit, which is good. Let the merits of the band do the talking and not the fact from where they are.

2. SOLOTHUS has a sound one can easily notice is as derived from Doom Metal as Death Metal. What blend of influences goes into the music? Perhaps some fellow Finns such as Sentenced and Convulse or newer acts like Spectral Voice and Krypts? Or does the Death and Doom halves come completely separately to conjoin yourselves in the writing process?

Kari: It is pretty much evenly split between Death and Doom Metal really. More than the old bands from Finland, the Death Metal influence comes from bands such as Bolt Thrower and Autopsy. Doom Metal aspect is definitely Candlemass, Reverend Bizarre, Cathedral etc. I would though mention that bands like Manilla Road and Runemagick have been on heavy rotation too, which you might or might not hear in our music. Instead of doing “Slow Death Metal” I think our sound is rooted more in playing a hybrid of Epic Doom Metal with mid-tempo Death Metal. We always get compared to Convulse and such, but I really can’t hear that much of resemblance. 

3. You guys seem to each have tons of bands, as is characteristic of Finnish musicians. What do you get from your various other endeavours and can you introduce some of the more ferocious ones to our readers?

Kari: I guess the different bands of the members are for different endeavours musically. The biggest one is of course Gorephilia, where our bassist Tami also plays and is a original member. Gorephilia is one of the best Death Metal bands around here nowadays and they just released their third album “In the Eye of Nothing” which also rips! Other one that I would mention is Sepulchral Curse. Me and our newer guitarist Aleksi also play in. Sepulchral Curse is a Blackened Death Metal band formed by me and some other friends living in Turku for our needs. Sepulchral Curse just released it’s debut album “Only Ashes Remain”. Other bands connected to Solothus are Yawning Void and Cataleptic.

4. Recently you signed a deal with 20 Buck Spin for you latest record, is this relationship working well and how does SOLOTHUS feel to be apart of one of the more heavily followed underground labels in recent years? Do you plan to stick with them?

Kari: Solothus being signed by 20 Buck Spin was the perfect alliance for us. David has been super cool and professional to work with. I really do not have anything to whine about. I think it is a perfect fit in every possible way. We will definitely continue our path with him. After our contract with our former label was fulfilled I wrote a list of labels with whom I would want to work with. 20 Buck Spin was the number one on that list and after I contacted him all fell into places. 20 Buck Spin is a label I have always paid a lot of attention to and during more recent years they have really rised their profile and released total killer releases! Every year on my top 10 albums of the year, there is anything between 1-3 20BS releases!

5. Obviously the COVID pandemic will have prevented a healthy touring cycle, as it has for most bands. Are SOLOTHUS plotting a huge return to the live scene when this all ends or has it been too damaging? Perhaps you can hint at what 2021 will hold for you…

Kari: Well yeah, the curse of COVID really hit everybody. We were supposed to do an European tour in 2020, but as you suspected, that got cancelled. We have had couple of gigs cancelled and Helsinki Death Fest was moved to 2021 too. Of course it sucks that after releasing new album and not being able to play live hinders us, but I can promise you, there are pretty cool things brewing underneath and will be announced hopefully sooner than later! 

6. The artwork on “Realm Of Ash And Blood” is a monolithic masterpiece that conjures a sense of doomy dread. Please shed some light on the image and its relevance to the music and lyrics of the record. Aside from looking cool, I am sure it must represent something deeper to the band and the greater picture of the album.

Kari: Yes, I love the cover of our album! Adam Burke was the perfect dude to paint it! I even have the original piece myself. I first found about Adam Burke after seeing Loss’ Horizonless album cover, which stuck with me. When we started thinking of artists both my band mates and David of 20 Buck Spin agreed that he was the perfect artist. The idea behind the cover came from our bassist Tami. It depicts the themes of the album pretty well; loss, triumph and defeat. Of course we wanted our Magus character to be present in this art too.

7. Going back to the sound of your band, though it is certainly recognisable as Finnish Death-Doom, there is some rather interested melodic work and sparser sections that feel almost blackened or at least influenced by something darker, does darkness flow naturally when writing music or do you have to “doom” the riffs down?

Kari: That is basically how the songs come out! As doomes as you hear them! Veli, our lead guitarist and besides me the only founding member, is the sole composer. He writes 95% of the music and then we hone it into shape at the rehearsal chamber. I do not think he listens to that much Black Metal really, maybe some Primordial, more just Doom Metal and Death Metal, but of course that does not mean that there would not be these kind of feelings in the music. It is great to see that people hear different things in our music. The guitar leads, melodies and solos are a big part of our music. One thing that has though changed is that now Veli has been riffing at the rehearsal place with Aleksi to come up with ideas, so Aleksi might be becoming more prominent member when it comes to writing music for Solothus.

8. Finally, how do you feel the reception of you collective works has spread in a grander sense? Of course in Europe and America it seems to be going healthily, has the world been dominated yet or are those days yet to come?

Kari: With 20 Buck Spin on our side we reached way bigger audience than before which has of course opened us many doors and reached more folks around the globe. I feel like that the path for us has just began eventhough we have been around for some time already. There are many places for us to play. It is only a matter of time before we raid those places too. Solothus Horde is coming for you all!

“Realm Of Ash And Blood” is available now via 20 Buck Spin.