THE LINEAR SCAFFOLD

Inventing that music was crazyness. Density, lot of colours, many contrasts (a poem recited with piano next to post-black metal??). Yes it is, post-black! Raspy inhuman voices, acid riffs but everything based on intelligent and rich keyboard melodies, with clean voices too. The kind of avant-gardism you can experiment with Arcturus and such. But again, no comparaison possible, Solefald created his own sound. And as said, it's crazy. 70's rock, electro, jazz, pop, thrash and heavy metal... you can find them all. From the most delicate to the most extreme. And the cheekiest thing is that it's completely coherent, and more: monolithic. Their originality has no weakness, but some people will have difficulties with certain passages. Early Solefald is really something to hear once if you like avant-gardism. What the group has done after is also good, but here it's simply different: there is definitely something in the air unique. The introduction of Philosophical Revolt, the keyboard on The Macho Vehicle, the explosion on Countryside Bohemians... those will let you on the floor. 3.5

Now here's a surprise. Solefald on Prog Archives. The open-mindedness of the prog metal team flabbergasts me again. Where can I sign up ?

Solefald is an avant-garde black metal (or post black metal) affair, very much like Arcturus (La Masquerade Infernale) and Ephel Duath (Phormula) are. Progressive, you may ask ? You betcha !!! More progressive than some so-called progressive bands, in any case.

The Linear Scaffold, as an album, is anything but linear. We are taken through so many different moods throughout this album it is hard to keep track. From black metal blast beats to beautiful piano motifs, from screeching vocals to spoken word poetry, from folk to classical, all within these 40 minutes. Noise ? Not at all. In fact, the songs in themselves are coherent, and, strangely enough, so is the album. The production is average, but works well enough for the type(s) of music. The execution of the two musicians here is not flawless (it was, after all, their first album as Solefald), but the brilliant and original ideas displayed more than make up for it.

If you are the adventurous type, you ought to give this album a few spins, as one will probably not do, unless you are an avant-garde open minded nut. Not into metal ? Stay away, we'll keep this excellent album to ourselves !

Four stars, and this is their first effort !

a truly gruondbreaking release, adding elements that had not really been heard in Black Metal before...this started the wave of weirdness in the realms of black metal. Not only is the songwriting and styles included breathtakingly beautiful, but the lyrics hint at a dark and clever mind behind the music. The fact that this is just two guys putting this all together speaks volumes....anyway, this is philosophical "black metal" (I put the quotes because this album really stretched the boundaries of what was acceptable at the time) that speaks to the pretentious in all of us, but it is not high brow just to thumb it's nose at everyone, no it is simply elegant.

I can see from earlier reviews of The Linear Scaffold the debut album from norwegian extreme metal band Solefald that the album is praised as being very experimental and that it signaled a renewal in the black metal genre at the time of it´s release. I must partially agree as I also think this is a good album and that there probably wasn´t many like it back in 1997. There are a few things that keeps this from being an excellent album though and for me it´s especially the vocals.

Processed vocals in black and death metal have never been my cup of tea and especially not when you sound like Filthy Danni from Cradle of Filth using his pig squeal vocals. I´m sorry but that just turns me off. It´s ok for a song or two but then it becomes comical and what you don´t want in extreme metal is to be comical. Actually the vocal perfomances are very varied but the squealing vocals are omnipresent throughout the album and it bothers me. The clean vocals which are very nordic sounding in their paatos are very good.

The music is pretty diverse too ranging from melodic black metal to more avant garde excursions. It never gets weird though and the many acoustic parts helps the album to be very dynamic.

Both Cornelius and Lazare are very competent musicians there´s no doubt about that. Great singers and instrumentalists.

The sound quality isn´t the best but it´s not disturbing my listening pleasure and that´s the most important thing.

All in all a very good debut album from Solefald, even though I really can´t stand the pig squeal vocals, but I can live with that because the rest of the music is very good. 3 stars for this album is what I will give.