Soliloquium – Famine Review

By Steel Druhm

In my never-ending quest to accumulate as many bands as possible that remind me of tragically defunct Finnish doom-death legends, Rapture, I crossed paths with Sweden’s two-man project, Soliloquium, back in 2018 through their Contemplations album. It was an entirely pleasant slab of moody, emotive melancholic death borrowing from early Katatonia, Insomnium, and of course, Rapture. It scratched an itch and made me a fan. 2020s Things We Leave Behind hit just as COVID was starting its assault on the world, and the album’s downcast and depressive beauty became a staple in the House of Steel as we watched the world lock down and drift. Somehow, I missed that Soliloquium dropped a new album in 2022, and I almost missed their latest too. Famine is the band’s fifth release, and Stefan Nordström and Jonas Bergkvist are still steering the ship, though this time they invited lots of friends to help out. Can this depressive duo keep the weepy doom-death flowing like fine wine on a cold Swedish day?

Things start out promising on the wide-ranging title track. It’s in the usual Soliloquium modality, with morose clean croons and sparse melancholic guitar plucking giving way to darker tones with guttural death roars and blackened shrieks cropping up. Doomy harominies percolate and fall off, and the mood is kept dark and brooding. The equipoise between melodic trills and the crushing quasi-death-doom is well executed and convincing. Strong hints of October Tide and Swallow the Sun flow freely, and the feel of a brutal winter of discontent is achieved. At the 3:45 point, things seem to end, only to lurch back into what sounds like an entirely new composition, and by the end of the 6:37 runtime, the enterprise ends up feeling long but worthwhile. Far superior is “2 A.M.,” which perfectly encapsulates all that’s right with the Soliloquium sound. It has a lot of Rapture’s best elements blended in, and there’s some beautifully emotional guitar work here in the vein of Tuomas Saukkonen’s Before the Dawn / Black Sun Aeon style. Jari Lindholm (Enshine, ex-Slumber) provides amazing lead guitar work here, elevating the song several degrees, and the nods to Katatonia’s Brave Murder Day era are icing on the depression cake.

Other solid moments include the later era Anathema-esque fragile Goth of “The Healing Process,” where beautiful vocals from Bianca Höllmüller enhance the weepy charms; and the very Ghost Brigade-esque doom rock of “Poison Well,” where Chelsea Rocha-Murphy of Dawn of Ouroboros drops by to keep things despondent with her haunting vocals. I especially enjoy the death n’ roll bit that erupts around the 3-minute mark. “Själamörker” is also quite tasty. Sung in the duo’s native Swedish, Stefan Nordström effectively blends his sadboi cleans and mammoth cookie monster roars on a bulldozer of a tune that hits every doom-death trope. It’s heavy but sorrowful, crushing but melodic. Unfortunately, things go pear-shaped for the album’s final third, where the heavy reliance on clean singing turns out to be ill-conceived. The last 3 tracks all suffer greatly from vocal issues (Stefan’s or his guests) as clean but underpowered, droning, and overly twee vocal tones become prevalent. The songs themselves have good things going for them, but they can’t overcome the vocal shortcomings. At 51 minutes, Famine also suffers from bloat, especially on the final few “troubled” tracks.

While I’ve always appreciated Stefan’s death and blackened vocals, he wasn’t known for his clean singing, usually employing guest singers to do the job. Here, he tries to carry more of the load himself with mixed results. While he’s effective on “The Healing Process,” he too often adopts a static, droning Goth-rock style that feels weak, flat, and entirely lacking in oomph. This derails tracks like “Weight of the Unspoken” and the closing epic “Vigil.” On the plus side, his death roars and blackened rasps are spot on and as effective as ever. His guitar work is always high quality and a reason the material resonates, as he does a good job conveying a bleak, cold atmosphere across Famine, borrowing from all the big names in the genre for some inspired moments.

I’m a fan of what Soliloquium do and there are great moments of melancholic doom here, but the writing isn’t as consistent as before and the vocal shortcomings are sometimes glaring. If Famine stopped at “Själamörker, ” this would be a very good album. It doesn’t, though, and by the final act, the weaknesses begin to show through. Warts and all, Famine is still a worthwhile listen with some big moments. Fans of the sadboi ways should give it a chance and see how it hits them in the feelz. I still miss Rapture.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Meuse Music
Websites: soliloquium.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/soliloquiumband
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025

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