Artist: Solar Cross
Country: USA
Label: Ixiol Productions
Format: 7″ EP / Demo Tape
Year: 2026
Originally ‘The Herald Of The Lightning And The Sun’ was released on a very limited cassette tape for Solar Cross’ appearance at the Cascadian Usurpation Festival in autumn last year. But it is also the first follow-up to the well-received ‘To the Ever Gleaming Pinnacle Of Timeless Mastery’ album, which was released in 2022 on vinyl and CD via Ixiol Productions and Altare Productions respectively, and was also treated to a cassette tape version by Nithstang in 2023. This meant that the lucky owners of the cassette tape, who were present at the festival, were viewed with a touch of envy. Apparently, Ixiol Productions could not stand by and watch this gross and inhuman injustice and has decided to release the two tracks plus the outro on vinyl as well, a 7″ EP to be precise.
Pretty much like the debut album, this 2-track demo harks back to the heydays of Eastern European Black Metal. The Great Stone Face, the anonymous figure behind Solar Cross, makes no secret of where he gets his inspiration from; instead, he wears it with pride. He himself cites the Polish collective Temple Of The Fullmoon (Graveland, Mysteries, Veles, Fullmoon, Infernum) and the Russian Blazebirth Hall (Branikald, Forest), as well as Moonblood from Germany.
If you were to take all that and give it a slightly more modern twist (read: a touch less gritty), you’d end up with something that comes very close to what Solar Cross is presenting here (again). Of course, it’s still raw and has plenty of rough edges, the true charm of this particular subgenre of Black Metal, but above all, it’s the organic flow of the music that brings to mind that Eastern European Black Metal aesthetic. The repetitive, melancholic riffs and the brisk tempo, particularly when combined with the exactly-raw-enough production, also bring to mind a band like Walknut.
It is a remarkable and rather unique phenomenon, brimming with pride and a triumphant sound that is particularly evocative, which is also sure to appeal to fans of bands like Drudkh. After all, you don’t hear this very often, certainly not at this level!
