Review: All Stars Are Dead - Solace In Surrender

Band: Review: All Stars Are Dead
Album: Solace in Surrender
Genre: Post Black Metal
Country: Germany
Label: Independent
Released: August 11th, 2025

Introduction

All Stars Are Dead is a post black metal band that started out just last year in Nürenberg, Germany. Their style and themes vary a bit from song to song as their guitar player is a big fan of classical music and tries to incorporate that into their compositions as evident in songs like The Waves or Sunrise. The lyrics cover a whole spectrum of themes ranging from depression to animal cruelty as well as sci-fi. On a side note, Chris the guitar player also plays for Totenlegion.

Solace in Surrender

Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. The Waves
3. Sunrise
4. Promise
5. Tyrant
6. Alpha Centauri
7. Gone

The intro to The Waves starts with a nice neo classical guitar riff, however production wise it would benefit from more boost in the mid range as the highs from the lead guitar and a very damp sounding drum beat is everything that is audible for the first 30 seconds; it feels like something is missing. After this the rest of the band joins the proceedings and along with the vocals their soundscape comes to life. Overall it is a well structured and interesting song.

Sunrise is a fantastic song. The intro is one of the most beautifull ones I've heard in a long time. With a running time of nearly nine minutes it's a song that brings a few suprises for the listener; to me this song is a prime example of post Black Metal.

On Promise a seasoned post BM listener should able to detect the influence for some the All Stars...favourite bands as the riffing style to me is very Groza'esque with a bit of Karg or Harakiri for the Sky cleans mixed in; so far so good. Their music definetly changes as it goes along and offers a great mix of variations.

Conclusion

Overall a very good debut record from such a young band. The melodic style of the guitars definetly fits the genre and the vocals are outstanding. However there are some production issues that I cant deny annoys me a bit. First of all it's too compressed for my liking which pushes the drums too far back and the issue from the first song appears every now and then throughout the whole album. This is not a total dealbreaker so all in all; a great debut from a band that shows a lot of promise and I'm sure we will hear a lot more from going forward.

BMZ Rating: 7 out of 10

Support All Stars Are Dead here: https://allstarsaredead.bandcamp.com/

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