New Jersey heavy rock stalwarts Shovelhead return this Saturday, Sept. 12, with their first new album since 2007. Titled A Place of Dead Roads, the 44-minute self-released seven-tracker is the fourth Shovelhead full-length overall, but you read that right, it’s been 19 years since they put out Spitting Oil. I mean, sometimes life happens, right? Well, sometimes life takes a while too.

They’re not calling it a return or a reboot or whathaveyou because Shovelhead have never had even an ounce of pretense to them. I remember being in college and hearing 2003’s Red Sky Horizon (discussed here), going on to see them blow other bands off the stage at still-missed Long Branch institution the Brighton Bar; always killer, always humble. And A Place of Dead Roads has more on offer than ‘still got it,’ though it’s got plenty of that as well. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jim LaPointe and drummer Mike Scott parted ways at some point in the last couple years with Sha Zaidi and recruited George Pierro (Solarized, 00, Maegashira, Tarpit Boogie, etc.) on bass, and Pierro also recorded, mixed and mastered the album.

I don’t know how much of that tracking was done live, but listening to “Witching Hour” at the outset, a precedent for scorch is quickly set and upheld for the seven-song/44-minute duration. Shovelhead push, careen and twist, sprinting with glee and control in kind. Pro shop and casual. With songs apparently written across a period of decades, back to the band’s roots as The Lemmings before the turn of the century, they highlight the taut delivery that’s always made them so righteous on stage while barnburning their way through these cuts with demonstrable no-nonsense, heavy rocking intensity.

What makes the issue so urgent after 19 years? Who cares, it works. “Witching Hour” is shorter than much of what follows — the side A capper/tracklist centerpiece standalone guitar interlude “Ghost in the Garden” notwithstanding — but sets a tone for brashness that the rest of A Place of Dead Roads stands up to with due fire. “Tempest” toys a bit with tempo, starting off with speed in its shreddy intro, pushing the boogie harder before mellowing for the verses, getting shoutier in the chorus and finishing with more of the shove. On paper it’s somewhat headspinning, but it’s easy enough to follow where they’re leading, and the subsequent “Dominion/Big Tex” brings further dug-innery and an underlying sense of ‘classic’ that in the listening experience is as much ’90s as it is ’70s, with LaPointe‘s vocals shouting to cut through the riffy barrage.

It’s a boogie if you can keep up with it, and if you need the breather, “Ghost in the Garden” follows ahead of the wallop packed by “Middle Man,” a slower but no less swaggering rollout that morphs into a heavy jam in a way “Tempest” doesn’t, but that adds space to A Place of Dead Roads without incongruity in terms of sound or process. A lot of the record is about what LaPointe is doing on guitar at any given moment, and whether you call it ‘riff-led’ or ‘lead-led,’ it’s the guitar at the forefront, but that doesn’t mean Shovelhead are without dynamic 30-plus years on, and both Scott and Pierro are given moments to shine in “Middle Man,” which is fitting ahead of the 12-minute “White Stag Ghost,” which soon moves from its strutting intro through a succession of turns that leads to an even broader-reaching jam, LaPointe soloing away while Pierro and Scott hold down the groove — yes, the stuff of classic power trioism. Could hardly be more appropriate.

They close with “Bombers,” which after “Middle Man” and “White Stag Ghost” feels like a return to ground and maybe a bookend with “Witching Hour” in reminding the listener that at the end of the day it’s about rock and roll. The scorch, the shred, the twists are all there as they have been across A Place of Dead Roads, and Shovelhead ride the rumble to the finish with a sense of triumph that might feel even more earned in the context of the 19 years it’s been since their last LP. Other than the shows listed below, I don’t know what Shovelhead‘s future holds, but they’ve been a well kept, undervalued secret of the New Jersey heavy underground for a long time. If that secret is a little less kept for the advent of A Place of Dead Roads, good.

Album streams in full below, followed by the buy link and more from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Shovelhead on A Place of Dead Roads:

“This album exemplifies the 30+ year legacy we have been establishing since the genre’s inception. There are brand new jams (Witching Hour, White Stag Ghost, Bombers, Ghost in the Garden), there are previously unrecorded songs that have been kicking around for years (Tempest, Dominion/Big Tex), and there is even a tune that was originally written and recorded way back in the early 90s (Middle Man).”

Shovelhead CD/merch link: https://intothevoidmerchco.com/collections/shovelhead

Tracklisting:
1. Witching Hour 3:47
2. Tempest 7:05
3. Dominion/Big Tex 6:40
4. Ghost in the Garden 2:53
5. Middle Man 7:14
6. White Stag Ghost 11:59
7. Bombers 4:24

Alongside other pioneering bands that helped lay the foundation for the coveted genre we know as Stoner Rock, SHOVELHEAD began crafting their sound before the genre had fully formed, resulting in a distinctive style of Stoner Rock N’ Roll that has served the scene for over three decades. During their initial run, three regionally notorious SHOVELHEAD albums (and one Lemmings album) were released, and at this point the titanic number of shows played is uncountable.

SHOVELHEAD decelerated in the late 2010s, along with the majority of planet Earth, but is back to full open throttle in 2026. Founding members Mike Scott and Jim LaPointe (also a contributor to Black NASA’s ‘Deuce’ album and live performer with the band) fused with George Pierro (Solarized, Maegashira, Tarpit Boogie) to resume playing shows, writing fresh tunes, and recording a new album.

‘A Place of Dead Roads’ is due out through independent release on Saturday, September 12, 2026. The heavy power trio self-produced the new full-length, with recording, mixing, and mastering all handled by George Pierro.

Pick up a physical copy, and other merch, here: intothevoidmerchco.com/collections/shovelhead

SEE SHOVELHEAD LIVE:
Sept. 12 Jackson, NJ – Shovelhead Record Release Show w/ Shut Up & Black Horse Pike
Sept. 25 – Vineland, NJ – w/ Meatplow & Dreadstrar
Oct. 04 – Manahawkin, NJ – w/ Dying Light

Shovelhead are:
Jim LaPointe – guitar/vocals
George Pierro – bass
Mike Scott – drums

Shovelhead Linktr.ee

Shovelhead on Bandcamp

Shovelhead on Instagram

Shovelhead on Facebook

[Click play above to stream the premiere of Solace’s Fading Failing Ruin in its entirety. Album is out this Friday, July 3, on Magnetic Eye Records.]

A new Solace record doesn’t happen every year. It’s been seven since the New Jersey-based riff metallers ‘returned’ with 2019’s The Brink (review here), and that wasn’t the longest stretch of their 30 years as a band. The arriving-this-week Fading Failing Ruin is their fifth full-length, their first for Magnetic Eye, and their second to feature drummer Tim Schoenleber, vocalist/sometimes-keyboardist Justin Goins and bassist Mike Sica alongside co-lead guitarists Justin Daniels and band-founder Tommy Southard.

As with The Brink, the cover is by Paul Vismara (Deer Creek) and the production, mix and master for these nine songs was done by Eric Rachel (of Trax East fame), and from the 14-minute highlight “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall” to the two-minute “Culling the Herd” — and yes, they do appear back-to-back in the tracklisting, but I’m talking about the divide in terms of methodology — through “Beyond Below,” which has a riff Southard and Schoenleber apparently jammed on as teenagers before they were in Godspeed together in the ’90s, and the tense crunch of (most of) the penultimate “Every Day is a Loaded Gun,” it is as guitar-fueled as Solace have ever sounded. They are all-in and uncompromising in a way that — as a fan of the band, and someone who is in no way impartial about their work — I can only consider purely their own.

Accordingly, Fading Failing Ruin runs 67 minutes, and while I haven’t sat with a stopwatch and clocked how much of that hour-plus is spent on solos, solos behind choruses, solos leading to other solos, and/or solos on top of other solos, the answer is ‘plenty’ regardless. But if there’s a message to the dreamy six-minute intro of “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” based around far-off swirling lead lines, acoustic guitar and keys for which I believe Lowrider‘s Pelle Andersson sat in remotely or Rachel provided, it’s that Solace aren’t going to be rushed unless they want to.

Chaos is still a close friend of the band, and from the opening “Spiral Will” onward, they bring an energetic sweep that carries the listener across the four sides on offer. The first of those, with “Spiral Will” — keys there as well — “Fettered to a Stone” and “A God Changes His Plans,” feels like immersion. There’s nothing tentative about it, but “Spiral Will” and “A God Changes His Plans” are shorter and in the case of the latter, punchier, and while “Fettered to a Stone” runs nearly eight minutes and features a twist-and-chug that’s classic Solace, smoothing out in midsection before Goins‘ shouts top the shred-fueled crescendo; in their wheelhouse, but with a self-awareness and sense of composition emblematic of both the band’s status as veteran songwriters and of their intention to kick as much ass as possible where and when they can.

“A God Changes His Plans” is the only inclusion besides the aforementioned “Culling the Herd” under four minutes long and is a preface to the hardcore lean of that song as well as “Every Day is a Loaded Gun” — lest the listener forget Southard‘s punker roots in Social Decay, Robot Dicks, etc. — but an early lyrical highlight with a standout line like “A future born of a dopesick mother,” showcasing another aspect of what Goins brings to the proceedings. He is bolder in his contributions here and more declarative of self than on The Brink, and it is only to this album’s benefit. It’s not quite “Like a rorschach butterfly of terror inked in blood and ashen rain” from the subsequent “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” but you get the idea.

There’s a depth of purpose throughout Fading Failing Ruin that reveals itself beneath the in-your-faceness of the guitar work and the general thrust of groove, helping to create a flow across the entire span of the 2LP. And about format, as much as “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall” earns its place as the lone denizen of side B, in a linear setting, the lead-in from “A God Changes His Plans” and the lead into “Culling the Herd” (which on vinyl starts side C) is a thing to be appreciated. Brash as they are and always have been, Solace are not unconsidered here. The push, the union of classic metal(s) and hardcore punk, sludge, doom riffing, and so on, all comes together as a single dynamic reach on the part of the band, and the album is a ride from start to finish. It does not sit still, it does not feel any need to capitulate to expectation, but it and the band that made it know what they’re about, and on a craft level, it’s a work of mastery.

This might be shown in the hypnotic draw-in of the long intro changing over to the immediate verse of “Wrath’s Object/The Big Fall,” but that’s hardly the only example present. The longest song on Fading Failing Ruin is a triumph unto itself and suitably on Solace‘s own terms, the strained whisper about kissing “the feet of a whore in the hate of a moment” — presented as a kind of hitting-bottom — notwithstanding, and represents well the range of mood they’re able to harness. Side C’s “Culling the Herd,” “Beyond Below” and “Malengine (The Scaffold)” might be considered the ‘meat’ of the album, were the whole thing not so meaty. The decades-ago origin of “Beyond Below” is noted above, but clearly the track has been fleshed out from whatever might’ve been on that rehearsal tape. It’s a highlight (there’s that word again) for the early vocal harmonies as well as the Slayery midsection that follows and the arrival of a doomier organ line, and “Malengine (The Scaffold)” is no less catchy or arranged-feeling, but more urgent in tempo. In its second half, it breaks to a stretch of dual-leads twice, and that becomes a complement to the chorus en route to the rousing finish.

If you’ve made it this far without any bruises — and if you’re paying attention, you likely haven’t — then side D’s pairing of “Every Day is a Loaded Gun” and the 10-minute “Ridden” should do the trick. Goins sneaks some welcome backing harmony in amid the shove of the former, but it’s the chug and the shout running headfirst into a wall of a mosh riff and organ-backed solos and the build that ensues before the comedown and arrival of a layer of acoustic guitar near the end, still leaving time for some gallop before they’re done, that makes it.

The already-started-where-you-been beginning of “Ridden” does little to communicate the ground the closer actually covers, but as regards Solace making something cohesive out of decades of influences across and beyond heavy subgenres, soloing the crap out of it, and refusing to follow any rules other than their own, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate sendoff. Another choice lyric in the second half “What hell would you crawl through if you thought you could trade/That broken part of you for something even you could not degrade?” becomes repeated as the final challenge the band issue moving toward the fadeout, and in what should by that point be no surprise, the guitars continue to rip even into that departure.

I’ll admit to some temptation to call Fading Failing Ruin stately, because in those moments like at the end of “Ridden,” they’re cognizant of what they’re doing, of the atmosphere they’ve created, but as a word, it’s not punk enough. They remain unto themselves in sound and celebration of what in many contexts would be excess, and at this point, for a fan, everything they do is like a bonus. I don’t think you can talk about the best heavy underground bands from my beloved Garden State without their name featuring prominently in the conversation, and with nothing to prove, they prove it here anyway.

Solace, “Spiral Will” official video

Solace, “Beyond Below” visualizer

Solace merch

Solace on Bandcamp

Solace on Facebook

Magnetic Eye Records store

Magnetic Eye Records website

Magnetic Eye Records on Instagram

Magnetic Eye Records on Facebook

Yeah, I’ve already posted about Solace‘s Fading Failing Ruin coming out July 3 on Magnetic Eye. And yeah, I’ve already posted about the European tour they’re about to launch tomorrow in Paris, playing numerous dates in support of Hermano as they head to and through Desertfest in Berlin and London in the same weekend. Very Solace, that. But while I’ve posted about these things before, the advent of a video for “Spiral Will” gives me a chance to talk about it again, and that, my friends, is all I’m really looking for.

It’s nice to see familiar faces in the clip they filmed out in the woods — Lisa Hass, Dave Benzotti, Mark Cruikshank, etc. — somewhere between here and the southern tip of New Jersey a month or so ago, and it’s fun when things get pagan and they start circling up around frontman Justin Goins. The song itself has a hook but doesn’t beat you over the head with it, and speaks well to how they build momentum over the course of the impending album.

I doubt they’ll see this, but I’m sorry they’re not playing Oslo this coming weekend as I’ll be there, but I wish them the best for the travel and shows regardless. They’ve made a beast of a record to tour on, so it’s fortunate that they are doing so.

From the PR wire:

SOLACE drop new video single ‘Spiral Will’ taken from forthcoming album “Fading Failing Ruin” & kick off European Tour!

SOLACE preach heavy metal to the faithful in the new music video ‘Spiral Will’ for the next advance single taken from their highly anticipated fifth full-length “Fading Failing Ruin”, scheduled for release on July 3, 2026, via Magnetic Eye Records.

Pre-orders are available HERE: https://spkr.store/collections/solace

The iconic stoner doom act from New Jersey, USA is also about to embark on their European tour that will be kicked off on May 7, 2026 in the French capital city of Paris.

SOLACE “Fading Failing Ruin” European Tour Dates 2026
07 MAY 2026 Paris (FR) La Maroquinerie (Supporting Hermano)
08 MAY 2026 Utrecht (NL) Tivoli (Supporting Hermano)
09 MAY 2026 Köln (DE) Luxor (Supporting Hermano)
10 MAY 2026 Dresden (DE) Chemiefabrik
11 MAY 2026 Wien (AT) Arena (Supporting Hermano)
12 MAY 2026 München (DE) Backstage (Supporting Hermano)
13 MAY 2026 Berlin (DE) Desertfest Berlin Warm-Up
15 MAY 2026 London (UK) Desertfest London
16 MAY 2026 Bridgwater (UK) Cobblestones
17 MAY 2026 Bristol (UK) The Gryphon
18 MAY 2026 Bournemouth (UK) Bear Cave
20 MAY 2026 Hildesheim (DE) Club VEB
21 MAY 2026 Göttingen (DE) Vinyl-Reservat
22 MAY 2026 Hamburg (DE) Stellwerk

SOLACE US Live Dates 2026
06 JUN 2026 Atlantic City, NJ (US) Anchor Rock Club
19 SEP 2026 Austin, TX (US) Ripplefest Texas
10 OCT 2026 Youngstown, OH (US) Emissions from the Monolith

SOLACE comment on ‘Spiral Will’: “If our previous album, ‘The Brink’, represented the last thoughts of a drowning man, then ‘Fading Failing Ruin’ is his spirit washing up on shore”, vocalist Justin Goins muses. “This new world is foreign and alien to him, and he’ll soon realize that there’s no bottom to which he can sink. There’s always another depth to descend once he crashes through the bedrock below. The cost of his failures in life is to be fettered to a stone by a chain at his ankle, walking in circles until the chain, winding itself around the stone, pulls him in a spiral to be crushed against the rock. The only way forward is to ascend, and the only way to ascend is to fashion wings – one feather grown from each slight and wound – until he can achieve escape velocity, breaking the chain and rising above his human failings. The freedom of wings, however, can be its own curse, threatening to turn him into a monster by setting him above what he sees as pedestrian concerns beneath him, destroying the humanity that sets him apart from the rest of the world.”

Tracklist
1. Spiral Will
2. Fettered to a Stone
3. A God Changes His Plans
4. Wrath’s Object (The Big Fall)
5. Culling the Herd
6. Beyond Below
7. Malengine (The Scaffold)
8. Every Day Is a Loaded Gun
9. Ridden

SOLACE deliver their fifth studio album “Fading Failing Ruin” just in time to celebrate the anniversary of their 30th year as a band. And all the heaviness, experience, and obvious maturity of their songwriting across three decades is perfectly reflected in the seeming ease with which these master craftsmen hammer out one captivating and crushing track after the other.

Recording by Eric Rachel at Bulletproof Music Studio, Hazlet, NJ (US) & The Pussycat Club, Milford, NJ (US)
Produced by Eric Rachel & Solace
Mix & mastering by Eric Rachel at Trax East, South River, NJ (US)
Cover art & layout by Paul Vismara

Guest musicians
Pelle Andersson (LOWRIDER) – various keyboards
Eric Rachel – additional keyboards
Duane Hutter – slide guitar

Line-up:
Justin Skyler Daniels – guitar
Justin Goins – keyboard, vocals
Tim Schoenleber – drums
Mike Sica – bass
Tommy Southard – guitar

https://solace-merch.printify.me/products
https://diedrunk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SolaceBand/

http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords

Solace, “Spiral Will” official video

Solace, Fading Failing Ruin (2026)

Solace will spend much of May on tour in Europe and the UK, hitting Desertfest London 2026 and other spots in company with Hermano, which, oof, that’s a good show. The NJ dirt metal heroes’ new long-player, Fading Failing Ruin, will be out July 3 on Magnetic Eye Records, and I won’t pretend I haven’t heard it. Across a 67-minute, pack-it-all-in-now-because-who-knows-when-you’ll-get-the-chance-again run of nine songs, the follow-up to 2019’s The Brink (review here) arrives not a moment too soon, and in true Solace style, it has destruction in mind from the outset.

30 years of Solace. That’s an accomplishment in itself, never mind the new record, but it’s not a huge surprise. They’re a lifer band. Fading Failing Ruin‘s first single, “Beyond Below,” is streaming below, audio and visualizer, and you can hear some of the more complex melodies they’re bringing to the payoff as well as the copious solos that, yes, are all over, both in frequency and dynamic.

The PR wire brings joyous news:

SOLACE reveal first advance single ‘Beyond Below’ & details of forthcoming new album “Fading Failing Ruin”

In the heat of summer, SOLACE will return with their massively anticipated fifth full-length “Fading Failing Ruin” on July 3, 2026, via Magnetic Eye Records. The iconic self-styled dirt metal act from New Jersey, USA begin by revealing the single ‘Beyond Below’ as a first welcome taste of the album to come. Pre-orders are now available HERE: https://spkr.store/collections/solace

In advance of the album release, SOLACE will pack new songs and classics into their flight cases and embark on a European tour starting on May 7, 2026 in the French capital city of Paris. Please find the album details of “Fading Falling Ruin” and all currently confirmed live dates below.

SOLACE comment on ‘Beyond Below’: “When we released our last record ‘The Brink’, I swore it wouldn’t take another nine years till the next one”, guitarist Tommy Southard admits. “Well, it took us six and a half, which for Solace is pretty good! About the first single, I had a couple of riffs that Timmy and I used to play years and years ago in the pre-Godspeed days. Last year at a Solace practice, I started jamming one of the riffs as a goof to Timmy and Justin heard it and asked me: ‘What the hell is that man? That needs to go on the new record!’ At first, I laughed it off, because I had been a 14-year old metalhead when I wrote this tune, but once we tweaked it a bit – Mikey threw a part in the middle and we worked it into a complete song – it was obvious that it was going to turn into a monster. The track came out pretty amazing considering how far back in the archive it went, but that’s the perks of doing this your whole damn life. I can hardly believe it’s been 30 years since I started this band. Yet Solace is still here somehow, and ‘Fading Failing Ruin’ is the best thing we’ve ever musically done. Literally everybody in this band played and worked their asses off for this record!”

Tracklist
1. Spiral Will
2. Fettered to a Stone
3. A God Changes His Plans
4. Wrath’s Object (The Big Fall)
5. Culling the Herd
6. Beyond Below
7. Malengine (The Scaffold)
8. Every Day Is a Loaded Gun
9. Ridden

SOLACE deliver their fifth studio album “Fading Failing Ruin” just in time to celebrate the anniversary of their 30th year as a band. And all the heaviness, experience, and obvious maturity of their songwriting across three decades is perfectly reflected in the seeming ease with which these master craftsmen hammer out one captivating and crushing track after the other.

Revolving around apocalyptic, infernal, and end time themes that easily fit this day and age, “Fading Failing Ruin” nails the current global mood by taking a strong dose of inspiration from the earliest days of metal and blending it with contemporary heaviness.

A direct link goes back to 1996, when SOLACE rose from the ashes of GODSPEED, who made their name on Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis & Butthead, appeared on the “Nativity in Black” tribute backing Bruce Dickinson, and toured with CATHEDRAL and BLACK SABBATH. Emerging at the dawn of the internet and the burgeoning stoner rock scene, SOLACE were driven by hardcore-infused metal, captivating vocals, and a dark doom underbelly.

The New Jersey band hit the scene with their ferocious debut “Further” in 2000. Its tracks remain as contemporary and relevant as in those early days, and an extended and re-mastered 25th anniversary edition became an unplanned but much deserved tribute to brilliant yet tortured original SOLACE vocalist Jason L., who had sadly passed away in January 2025.

SOLACE continued to build on a solid foundation of classic metal, early doom, and punk ethic into which the four-piece infused a healthy dose of hardcore fury and groovy, grinding sludge.

Three years after the worldwide success of “Further”, SOLACE returned with the sophomore album “13” (2003), which highlighted the epic side of their songwriting. In the wake of this album, the band was invited twice to perform at the prestigious Roadburn Festival in 2006 and 2009.

The shoremen returned with their highly praised third album “A.D.” in 2010. Despite the band’s growing acclaim, SOLACE took an informal hiatus to revamp their lineup, returning even stronger with full-length number four, “The Brink”, in 2019.

SOLACE have called their amalgamation of doom and heavy metal with hardcore elements dirt metal, while elsewhere it has been somewhat tongue-in-cheekily dubbed shorecore. Others file the New Jersey five-piece under stoner metal – and in truth, all these descriptions have and still fit the band to an extent.

With “Fading Failing Ruin”, SOLACE erect a new milestone of US heavy metal that respects traditions from both sides of the Atlantic while churning toward a chaotic future. Time to bang those heads!

Guest musicians
Pelle Andersson (LOWRIDER) – various keyboards
Eric Rachel – additional keyboards
Duane Hutter – slide guitar

Recording by Eric Rachel at Bulletproof Music Studio, Hazlet, NJ (US) & The Pussycat Club, Milford, NJ (US)
Produced by Eric Rachel & Solace
Mix & mastering by Eric Rachel at Trax East, South River, NJ (US)
Cover art & layout by Paul Vismara

SOLACE “Fading Failing Ruin” European Tour Dates 2026
07 MAY 2026 Paris (FR) La Maroquinerie (Supporting Hermano)
08 MAY 2026 Utrecht (NL) Tivoli (Supporting Hermano)
09 MAY 2026 Köln (DE) Luxor (Supporting Hermano)
10 MAY 2026 Dresden (DE) Chemiefabrik
11 MAY 2026 Wien (AT) Arena (Supporting Hermano)
12 MAY 2026 München (DE) Backstage (Supporting Hermano)
13 MAY 2026 Hagen (DE) Werkhof Hohenlimburg
15 MAY 2026 London (UK) Desertfest London
16 MAY 2026 Bridgewater (UK) Cobblestones
17 MAY 2026 Bristol (UK) The Gryphon
18 MAY 2026 Bournemouth (UK) Bear Cave
20 MAY 2026 Hildesheim (DE) Club VEB
21 MAY 2026 Göttingen (DE) Vinyl-Reservat
22 MAY 2026 Hamburg (DE) Stellwerk

SOLACE US Live Dates 2026
06 JUN 2026 Atlantic City, NJ (US) Anchor Rock Club
19 SEP 2026 Austin, TX (US) Ripplefest Texas
10 OCT 2026 Youngstown, OH (US) Emissions from the Monolith

Line-up:
Justin Skyler Daniels – guitar
Justin Goins – keyboard, vocals
Tim Schoenleber – drums
Mike Sica – bass
Tommy Southard – guitar

https://solace-merch.printify.me/products
https://diedrunk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SolaceBand/

http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords

Solace, Fading Failing Ruin (2026)

Solace, “Beyond Below” visualizer

It had been a couple months of scheduling and busy weekends and such, then a snowstorm last week, but I arrived at the red barn where Solace were recording their next album at noon and was, unsurprisingly there before the band. They’ve been chipping away on this record since the end of August, and with most of the instruments done, today was continuing vocals and whatever else. Happy Solstice.

First, I went to the wrong barn –typical — and so got to recommend Solace to the neighbors, who said they were stoners. They were kind enough to show me where I was actually headed and when I got to what at the time I didn’t even know was called the Pussycat Club (killer vibe), both engineer Jeff Tareila and Eric Rachel, the latter of whom is a Jersey legend, were hanging out waiting for the band. Chitchat in antique chairs and soon Solace vocalist Justin Goins rolled in, and was catching up since apparently he lived in this area of western, northern NJ, and he and Tareila went back and forth about the towns and local high schools, who was metal and who was punk, and so on. Like you do.

Guitarist Justin Daniels arrived a short time later, followed by Tommy Southard, who is the remaining founding member of the band, with his wife Jennifer. I’ve known this band for at least the last 20 years, obviously the newer members less, but I remain a fan nonetheless. I remember doing shows opening for them and being blown off the Brighton Bar or whatever stage it was at some sparsely attended shows, and so I’ll readily admit my bias, but I was excited to see the place and to hear the songs and the whole thing. I swear I kept the nerding out at Eric Rachel to a minimum.

I couldn’t help but feel sentimental about last time I was in the studio with Solace, which was Mad Oak in Boston in early 2010, as they were making A.D. (review here), which wound up being the end of an era as much as the beginning of one, but this was a different vibe. First of all, guitars were “done,” though Justin had ideas for more parts even as Goins was in the live room doubling prior-recorded tracks for “Wrath’s Object,” which is apparently upwards of 15 minutes long, digging into a hook with a characteristic impact of drums and twists of guitar. When Goins came back in the control room, took a hit off the bottle of bourbon that Southard had apparently brought and took out his slippers, it was time to get down to business. That proved to indeed be how it went.

Solace’s double-guitar attack — Tommy and Justin are both lead players — has always been central, but Goins has been in this band for a decade by now, and he’s already got an album under his belt in 2019’s The Brink (review here), so I was looking forward to hearing him hit it. And well, he hit it. He, Justin, Tommy and Eric were all shooting ideas back and forth for the arrangement, lines about breaking hands and kissing feet as a solo rips behind, but the time he was doubling those lines, they were stuck in my head.

Talk turned to extending a verse, four lines instead of two, getting into the construction of it and where vocals, guitar, something, is needed. The nerd in me, knowing that this record will be finished and out by the time they’re hitting the road in Europe next year for Desertfest and those shows with Hermano, plus whatever else may come, will appreciate having been here while those choices were made. The album review will suck, writing-wise, but sometimes that’s worth the tradeoff as well.

Goins got back to work after a couple minutes, hitting into that verse, Tommy and Justin shouting approval along the way. That writing partnership, Tommy/Justin, has evolved over the years, and their personalities are well suited to each other. Justin brought an acoustic and they both worked to actively resist adding parts to the song, but I guess some songs are like that. A joke my wife and I tell at Thanksgiving is “mashed potatoes can absorb infinite amounts of butter,” and this was kind of the same idea, but with riffs. Goins sang along a high part and they decided to throw that in instead of more guitar.

But vocals, unless you’re doing it live or you don’t give a shit what you sound like, or both, are an inherently nitpicky process, and part of the work one does as a singer is take in stride when four dudes in the next room are telling you to redo parts directly into your headphones. There was, as well, lots of encouragement, and bourbon, which is how it should be.

The chorus was next, starting with lines around repetitions of the title-lyric, “Wrath’s object/Disaffected/Wrath’s object/Vivisected,” with Goins putting a lower register delivery under the highs. It was rough and apparently there was more of it than I’d heard, but it sure sounded like Solace to me, and not just for the rampant soloing. You’ll know the line, “Kiss the feet of a whore in the hate of a moment,” when you hear it. The timing on “Swept the dust from a killing floor,” held back just the tiniest bit, brought a smile to my face.

There were more punches, then a round of listening, a break while Eric Rachel was sorting whatever stems, more listening. Everything sounds killer in studio monitors, and this was unmixed, but it was easy to hear where it was headed; quite possibly at the end of the album.

“Malengine” was next, with an off-time intro into a mellower verse. As much as Goins was pushing out “Wrath’s Object,” that initial verse was comparatively restrained, which I’ll tell you is also the word Justin used to describe every part of the record without a guitar lead or solo on it. Fair. “Malengine,” which Goins noted is the most personal song on the record for him, built up from that quiet start, and he had very clearly showed up to work. Tommy dug the verse; more when it was doubled. There was some detailing, some lines using the room, a little further off mic, then the heavy part that ensues, the riff complex — 9/8 and 11/8, so I heard — but traceable in doom. The title, I learned, is Middle English, and the definition is what you think it would be, some kind of evil machination or deceit. I had glanced at the lyrics, but didn’t take a picture.

They went line by line, building it along the way and getting the takes down. Goins called a couple redos for lines around a punchy bassline, and Eric had a couple things as they went, but they were moving, hammering it out and doubling along the way; get it done and keep going. The work of it. It was starting to get dark, but, well, it was the solstice, so it would be. There were more highs, some left for next session. Forward momentum. When Goins was dragging, Tommy talked some shit, and that worked. “I am here on the scaffold/For thirty pieces of silver sold.” He nailed it once, then nailed it again. Justin said he would buy it. They were rolling.

A couple harmonies layered in, Tommy calling approvals over the control room mic. The song has a riding groove, even with those turns where the bass is punching through (the guitar is right there as well, of course; it’s unmixed), and Goins got into it, which was cool to see. There were lines where he dubbed in a talkbox on a couple spoken lines on the ends of verses, and then he went another section of the song, post-chorus solo section, a sudden pivot to brighter sounding leads, a layer of acoustic guitar worked in there as well, and a softer delivery for the lyric, “A neck breaks like a piece of chalk…” that was well received. The song jumps back and forth, “heavy part” to “pretty part,” so they jumped to do the latter and listened back, back in to double, going quick but not uncarefully through.

More harmonies, some just to get ideas down, and another few lines closer to the end of the song, before a big drum fill into the solo part. It was after 6:30 by then for a session that was slated till eight, but Goins was holding up more than admirably, considering he’d been singing at that point for most of the prior six hours. Then he was done and I got to hear the whole thing front-to-back, and the changes and that back and forth made a whole lot more sense. The solos fed into the intensity, and after, they brought it back to the chorus, and it was raw, with a little flourish from Goins at the end, again well received. Some laughs about a live solo track that was still in where it wouldn’t ultimately be. Some more noodling on the acoustic from Justin, working ideas through even though guitars were, as they said on socials, “abandoned.”

Goins put some tambourine on the chorus of “Malengine,” and they tried it on the pretty part, but nixed it. He came back in the control room and sat, then decided to wrap with some more harmonies on “Spiral Will,” which I hadn’t heard yet. They didn’t have it along, so went to a song called “Tip of the Spear,” and guess what, I hadn’t heard that either. They were going back and forth about the title. It was a rocker, with a different look in the early verses, and the discussion was what to do to coincide with the solo. That ended up being a lower-register, grungey kind of melody that sit well over the tumult of guitar. Justin and Tommy lost their shit when he doubled it, and rightly so. A couple punches in and out. Done. A last harmony, which Goins nailed, was a gorgeous way to end the session.

There was another song, called “Fading Failing Ruin,” that I was hoping to hear since Tommy had mentioned he wrote the root of the riff when he was 14. Justin had it on his phone, so they hooked it up through the board and it was nodder. I nodded accordingly, in a manner I anticipate spending much of next year doing. Then I got to hear “Ridden’ — sweet melodic shout over midtempo strut — which had also been talked about. It was done, as opposed to “Fading Falling Ruin,” which was instrumental, and as Jeff pointed out, every song was working with a different vibe. I can’t wait to get to know the rest of it. They’ll be back in to finish more — the record isn’t done, but clearly it’s getting there; “Wrath’s Object ” was all the way done today, and “Tip of the Spear,” or whatever it will be called (“Fettered to a Stone” is in consideration) — so progress is being made, and I felt fortunate to be in the room even for part of it.

In addition to the Spring jaunt in Europe and the impending full-length, Solace are already booked for Ripplefest Texas and the returning Emissions From the Monolith next Fall, and one can only imagine there will be dates between, so 2026 is going to be busy. I’m glad, and if they get a fraction of their due, so much the better, but you have to understand, Solace are going to keep going anyway. It’s not a band that exists by happenstance. These guys need to make this noise. I can’t wait to hear the record, to know the songs, and to see them live.

Thanks to Justin, Tommy, Goins, Jeff and Eric for having me out to Pussycat Club, which was a rad space with killer sound, and very, very definitely the barn I had been looking for. Thanks to The Patient Mrs. for the day and thanks to you for reading.

This Fall, Solace have been in the studio making their awaited fifth full-length. Earlier in the year, the band reissued their 2000 debut, Further (discussed here), for its 25th anniversary, toured the West Coast around a tear-your-face-off set at Planet Desert Rock Weekend V (review here) in Las Vegas, and were struck by the loss of founding vocalist Jason Limpatsis around the same time. It’s been a busy year for the long-running New Jersey-based stoner metallers, in other words.

In addition to that next record, to which I’m very much looking forward, coming out as their first release on Magnetic Eye, there’s this quick run of European shows alongside Hermano, with John Garcia, “Nice-Guy Dave” Angstrom, Dandy Brown, and so on. It’s not listed below, but they mention as well the prior confirmation for Desertfest London 2026 on or about May 15, and I can’t help but wonder if a Desertfest Berlin slot isn’t still to be revealed. We’ll see, I guess.

Of course, I’m wondering if the album will be out by then. Record in April, tour in May? Tour in May, record in June? Tour in May, record in my inbox early December? I do definitely feel a strong preference for the latter scenario, but whenever it comes, it’ll be welcome, and I’d rather have Solace take their time.

From social media:

SOLACE EURO-TOUR 2026!!!

We’re super stoked to announce that we’re FINALLY coming back to mainland Europe in 2026! And we’re kicking it all of in righteous fashion by supporting the mighty HERMANO! More dates to be announced in the coming weeks. And don’t forget we’ll be bringing the Dirt Metal to Desertfest London and can’t wait to see all our UK family 🤘🤘💥💪☠️🎸🎵

Thanks to Thomas at Broken Music for putting in the work to put this together.

7-5 Paris, France LA MAROQUINERIE
TICKETS: https://tix.to/Hermano-Paris-2026

8-5 Utrecht, Netherlands TIVOLI VREDENBURG
TICKETS: https://www.tivolivredenburg.nl/agenda/23766193/hermano-08-05-20

9-5 Cologne, Germany LUXOR
TICKETS: https://www.myticket.de/de/hermano-tickets

11-5 Vienna, Austria ARENA
TICKETS: https://tickets.arena.wien/at/Events/69442

12-5 Munich, Germany BACKSTAGE HALLE
TICKETS: https://www.myticket.de/de/hermano-tickets

Solace are:
Justin Daniels – guitar
Justin Goins – keyboard, vocals
Tim Schoenleber – drums
Mike Sica – bass
Tommy Southard – guitar

https://solace-merch.printify.me/products
https://diedrunk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SolaceBand/

http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords

Solace, Further (2025 Remaster) (2000)

Solace, The Brink (2019)

I know that of course in addition to the original by Lynyrd Skynyrd, at one point or other Corrosion of Conformity also took on “On the Hunt” for a cover version, but this being from the era of their debut album, 2000’s Further (discussed here) makes it somewhat bittersweet. You can see the pictures of Baby Solace below, and you’ll remember the band lost their original, long-since-out-of-the-lineup-but-still-on-these-records original vocalist Jason earlier this year. Posting this news a day late because I didn’t want to read the email and have to listen to the track is like the most me-specific avoidance of emotional labor I could hope for in a given afternoon. But, well, here we are.

The 25th anniversary reissue of Further is out Aug. 22. Screw the band and the label both for making me feel feelings about it.

Not really though. They’re okay.

From the PR wire:

SOLACE release advance single ‘On the Hunt’ taken from the expanded reissue of debut album “Further”

SOLACE drop their never-before released rendition of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic ‘On the Hunt’ as the final advance single from the expanded and remastered new edition of their debut full-length “Further” (2000), which the American stoner metal stalwarts release in celebration of the album’s 25th anniversary.

The enhanced & remastered version of “Further” has been chalked up for release on August 22, 2025 via Magnetic Eye Records and is available for pre-order here: http://lnk.spkr.media/solace-further

Tracklist
1. Man Dog (2025 Remaster)
2. Black Unholy Ground (2025 Remaster)
3. Followed (2025 Remaster)
4. Whistle Pig (2025 Remaster)
5. Hungry Mother (2025 Remaster)
6. Angels Dreaming (2025 Remaster)
7. Suspicious Tower (2025 Remaster)
8. Heavy Birth/2-Fisted (2025 Remaster)
9. Another Life
10. We Bite
11. On the Hunt
12. Heavy Birth/2-Fisted (Distanced from Reality version)
13. Dirt
14. Funk #49 (Live in Tokyo ’98)

Recording line-up
Jason – voice, lyrics
Tommy Southard – guitars
Bill “Bixby” Belford – drums
Rob Hultz – bass

Produced by Eric Rachel and Solace
Recorded by Eric Rachel at Trax East, South River, NJ (US)
Mixed by Eric Rachel at Trax East, South River NJ (US)
Mastering by Alan Douches at West Westside Music, Hudson Valley, NY (US)

Cover painting: “Midnight Mass 2” by Wes Benscoter
Original layout by Frank Bridges
2025 layout by Łukasz Jaszak

Shop
http://lnk.spkr.media/solace-further

Solace Current lineup
Justin Daniels – guitar
Justin Goins – keyboard, vocals
Tim Schoenleber – drums
Mike Sica – bass
Tommy Southard – guitar

https://solace-merch.printify.me/products
https://diedrunk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SolaceBand/

http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords

Solace, “On the Hunt”

Solace, Further (2025 Remaster) (2000)

Solace, The Brink (2019)

Tim Cronin was one of the kindest people you could hope to meet, in a heavy-underground context or any other. I don’t remember when we first got in touch, but I’m pretty sure it was when I was in college, through his band The Ribeye Bros. His passing earlier this week after being diagnosed with ALS in March leaves a couple unfillable holes behind, in music as well as in the lives of those who knew and loved him. He was somebody who was nice to me and had no need or reason to be. Among humans, that makes him tops in my book. He took the Obelisk Questionnaire in 2022 and it was always a pleasure to hear from him whether he had new music happening or not. New Jersey and rock and roll will miss him, let alone family, friends and bandmates, and those who knew him even casually.

Cronin was an original member of pre-Monster Magnet, when the band was himself, Dave Wyndorf, John McBain and a whole lot of weirdo restlessness. They played under different names, different shows, different ideas. Following heavy space rock whims in the late ’80s when most kids were getting down with a slice of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie.” Test Patterns Vol. 1 was released in 2022 on God Unknown Records with two early versions of the acid-slacker epic “Tab” plastered across its sides, each an entrancing, underproduced abyss waiting to swallow the listener. Hawkwind through the looking glass. The stuff of mirror universes. All go.

It wasn’t the first archival Monster-Magnet-before-they-were-Monster-Magnet-type release. One shudders to imagine how many tapes like this are sitting, what, in Dave Wyndorf’s garage?, when they should probably be in the Library of Congress for preservation and future research. In 2001, Wrong Way Records put out Love Monster as a collection of material from around the same time, with songs like “Atom Age Vampire,” “War Hippie” and “Five Years Ahead” and a sound that was about as raw as one could expect for having been tracked in a rehearsal space during the Reagan years. I don’t think it was actually recorded on a phone answering machine, but you get the idea.

The journey of “Tab” — gorgeous and muddy in kind, a headphone-ready, close-your-eyes piece of transportive potential drawing a distorted line in the sand between the squares and those who can dig it, existentially speaking — of course has its most known representation on the 1991 25…Tab EP (reissue review here, discussed here), but is different every time. This owes to the open and unsolidified nature of what Monster Magnet were at the time — it’s not every song that can feature twice on a 48-minute LP that holds nothing else, either literally or figuratively — and the experimentalism driving them. They were all fuck-around and the music was the find-out.

“Tab” on Test Patterns Vol. 1 has been remixed and remastered and whatnot, but it’s still one of the greatest pieces of freakery ever put to tape. I know there’s a lot of weird stuff out there, and that’s a good thing, but Monster Magnet were too ragamuffin for the arthouse set — and thus at the vanguard — and because they went on to more commercial sounds and successes, there’s an entire subset of their fanbase that never knew from whence the “Spacelord” came. “Tab” amplifies their loss. The voidbound echoes in the midsection, where you can’t quite tell anymore what’s backwards or forwards and it kind of all sounds like noise but there’s still that strum of guitar, embody this. Once they got the lineup solidified, signed to Caroline and moved on to making albums like 1991’s Spine of God (reissue review here, discussed here) and 1993’s Superjudge (discussed here), they brought more structured craft. But I’ll argue that as straightforward as they’ve ever gotten — and there have been ebbs and flows throughout Monster Magnet’s career of weirdoism; sometimes it’s personnel, sometimes it’s Wyndorf directing, sometimes it’s just life, I think — their foundation in noisy, mess-around-with-sound psychedelia and space rock has always been a distinguishing factor. Cronin was an essential part of that.

Side B’s “Tab (1988 Demo)” is — you guessed it — even rawer. It begins with chimes and mellow swirl in a call to prayer and soon oozes its way through a lysergic morass of drift and noise. The sound has obviously been cleared up, but Wyndorf’s croon is largely indecipherable and that’s fine. It’s about the atmosphere, the density of the wash they create, more than any single element peaking through the mix. That lifeline strum is there, even more buried, but the persona of the demo “Tab” is more meditative, even less ‘song’ in the traditional sense than a piece for worship set forth by those chimes. To be sure, it’s not any gods you’ve ever heard of being called down, but the mad-howling drag of the later reaches are definitely in communion with something.

I picked Test Patterns — and I don’t know that there will ever be a Vol. 2 or not, especially now — to close the week to honor Cronin, and to underscore the idea that sometimes we don’t know at the time the impact that our actions will have. No way John McBain, Cronin or Wyndorf knew that the band they were shaping would still exist more than 35 years later, let alone have the influence or reach Monster Magnet have enjoyed. But that’s just it. People do things all the time, put stuff out into the world, and sometimes it’s pretty special. I used to read Cronin’s blog about Jack’s Music customers. I dug his collages of cut-and-pasted LP art a lot. Between the Ribeyes and doing lights and whathaveyou for Monster Magnet, with whom he stayed close for decades even after not being in the band anymore, he was always working on something, plugging a show, etc. Putting art into the world, making it better.

On behalf of myself and this site, condolences to Cronin’s friends, family, bandmates, and really the entirety of my beloved Garden State, which is certainly poorer for his passing. I don’t know how you start a campaign to rename streets or anything like that, but if there isn’t a Tim Cronin Blvd. in Red Bank sometime soon, we’ll know for certain there’s no justice in the universe. Rest in peace, Tim, and thanks for everything.

—

In light of the above and out of respect to Cronin’s memory, I’m going to leave it there for this week. I know this interrupts the Parliament-Funkadelic series of Friday Full-Lengths. I’ll get back to that next week. Until then, thank you for reading and I wish you a great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Tell someone you love them. Fuck ICE. Fuck fascism.

FRM.

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