“The faith you rely on is the cross that you die on.”
When deathcore truly began making its mark in the latter 2000s to earlier 2010s, the intermittent cases of groups dropping one or a few vastly influential records, only to vanish afterward, was rather obfuscating. Some may have continued to play sporadic live sets from time to time, but even those bands tended to follow a similar path in terms of discontinuing musical releases. It feels compulsory to bring up that very axiom given the subject of this review. If Molotov Solution’s The Harbinger and Insurrection were among your most played deathcore albums of that time, you are not the only individual in that boat. Politically charged and viscerally raw even by the standards of that era of deathcore, Molotov Solution are one such band that released albums that are well within the influential space of many other groups to this day. Despite coming back from a short hiatus in 2013, Molotov Solution would exclusively play shows moving forward. All signs pointed to that being the band’s ultimate fate.
I guess hell truly freezes over occasionally. In November of last year, Molotov Solution released “Devour the Children”, their first new music in thirteen long years. As pleasant as pleasant surprises go, many were skeptical as to whether this was a one-off release or hopefully the first volley in another round of flaming hellfire from the underground deathcore titans (which is quite a significant label given their limited body of work). You’ll be pleased to know by now—unless you’ve been living under an iron-clad rock—that “Devour the Children” was just the beginning. Three more single drops later and we are on the cusp of a new EP project from Molotov Solution. Having lost none of their prowess that made them the early-era deathcore heavyweights they’ve become known as today, Molotov Solution has crafted another incendiary flaming cocktail of deathcore to add to their small but scorching discography.
Void is a melting pot of deathcore sounds past, present, and future. Atmospheric yet riddled with those nostalgic blast beats, “Devour the Children” sets the tone of Void immediately. And if you were at all worried about whether Molotov Solution was going to maintain their politically charged lyricism or not, don’t fret. “The revolution devours its own” is one such case of several anarchist-sympathetic messaging in this series of insurgent allegories.
“Necessary Evil” and “Mortis Imperium” convey Molotov Solution’s continued hatred for the hierarchy and war machines of the world. Viciously howled through the suffocating riffs of Robbie Pina and machine gun drumming of Jacob Durrett, vocalist Nick Arthur sadistically pulsates “We are the necessary evil, we collect the heads of kings.” and “We are born to feed the teeth of the war machine.” Arthur’s range alone is enough to conceptualize the seething disdain Molotov Solution holds for the globalist institutions. Insurrection will feel as if it came out yesterday with how disciplined Arthur sounds; the same goes for Pina and Durrett.
“Stranglehold” should be rather self-explanatory. With more noticeable modern influence in comparison to the rest of the EP, “Stranglehold” is very technical from an instrumental standpoint. For proponents of the iconic pinch harmonic from Gojira’s “Stranded”, there’s an abundance of akin sound to revel in on this track. Layering over the top of the song’s slow burning chugs and blast beats, listeners can feel the revolutionist rope tighten second by second around their necks. In spite of the compromise for technicality in exchange for brutality on “Stranglehold”, Molotov Solution has one final ace in the hole in store for their return.
Molotov Solution have created mangling deathcore in the name of subversives. Were you expecting them to go out so quietly on their latest entry and long-awaited return? Just like the violently disobedient subjects of their sound, Molotov Solution ensures Void goes out with a rebellious bang. “The Golden Tower” is Void’s longest and perhaps most expansive track from the perspective of era-blending. Modern ambient tech-death inspired deathcore, classical breakdown-core, and even quasi-clean vocalization all distill together to produce what is arguably Molotov Solution’s most fine-grained composition in their long but spasmodic careers. Not just with an EP concerning violent resistance but an entire musical catalog, “The Golden Tower” at times gives the impression of a triumphant closer and—hopefully unlikely—swan song for Molotov Solution.
Molotov Solution has clearly retained their ideals of perpetuating change through any means necessary. It was true back in 2009 and 2011 when they released their timelessly inspirative tandem of The Harbinger and Insurrection. The same is true with Void. The very sense of Molotov Solution’s sympathy for revolution in some respects may have been what led them to return after a long musical absence. We should all be very grateful they did. When one witnesses in aggregate the state of current world affairs, you start to realize the timing of their resurgence is just as equally impeccable. Lean, sharply to the point, and a filtration of deathcore epochs old and new, Void stands as a proudly battle-scarred ode to the vehemently seditious idealists of society and cements Molotov Solution’s rightful place on the peak of underground deathcore’s Mt. Olympus.
9/10
Void independently releases on March 21st, and you can pre-save it here.