This was an essential date for fans of stoner rock and doom metal. Hermano’s return to Paris, nearly two decades after their last appearance in the French capital, would have been enough on its own, but the addition of Solace, seemingly playing their first-ever show in the City of Light, made the evening even harder to ignore. Fittingly located in the same neighborhood where Jim Morrison is buried, La Maroquinerie was packed accordingly.
Solace’s set began in mildly chaotic fashion, with guitarist Justin Daniels nowhere to be seen when showtime arrived. Rather than wait, the band simply launched into “Spiral Will,” their new single released only days earlier, and Daniels eventually appeared midway through the song. "Fancy seeing you here!" quipped frontman Justin Goins.
Founding guitarists Tommy Southard and Daniels draw heavily from the twin-guitar attack of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, while channeling the darker riff architecture of Tony Iommi. The result is loud, dense, and unapologetically physical, pure American heavy metal played with absolute conviction, full of groove, weight, and just enough melody to keep the whole thing from collapsing under its own mass. Goins’ vocals cut through that wall of sludge like a blowtorch through sheet metal, sharp, violent, and impossible to ignore.
The set is over quickly, but it leaves damage behind, brief, brutal, and exhilarating, like taking a punch to the face from someone you immediately want to buy a drink.
