Samothrace

Tour Dates

Oct 19 2008 Spinks @ Neil Diamond     Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oct 20 2008 The Riot Room w/ Nachmystium and Wolves in the Throne Room     Kansas City, Missouri
Oct 22 2008 Replay… Samothrace LP/CD Release Show w/ Rabbid Rabbit, TBA…     Lawrence, Kansas
Oct 23 2008    Blast-o-Mat w/ Burn Heavy, TBA…     Denver, Colorado
Oct 24 2008    The Filling Station     Albuquerque, New Mexico
Oct 25 2008 TBA     Fladstaff, Arizona
Oct 26 2008 TBA     Phoenix, Arizona
Oct 27 2008    House Show @ Chuey / Jaime’s w/ Barren, TBA…     Los Angeles, California
Oct 28 2008     8:00P Hazmat w/ Embers, TBA     Oakland, California
Oct 29 2008 Thee Parkside Bar w/ Giant Squid, One Hundred Sons, TBA…     San Francisco, California
Oct 30 2008     Monstros Pizza w/ The Makai, TBA…     Chico, California
Oct 31 2008     Halloween Show in PDX…TBA     Portland, Oregon
Nov 1 2008     Squid & Ink w/ TBA…     Seattle, Washington
Nov 2 2008     Green Frog Acoustic Room w/ Piano Mover     Bellingham, Washington
Nov 3 2008 TBA w/ Corrupted and Asunder     Olympia, Washington
Nov 4 2008 TBA     Olympia, Washington
Nov 5 2008     TBA     Portland, Oregon
Nov 6 2008    TBA     Boise, Idaho
Nov 7 2008     TBA     Salt Lake City
Nov 8 2008    Curtis St. Bar w/ TBA     Denver, Colorado
Nov 9 2008    TBA     Lincoln, Nebraska
Nov 10 2008     Arts Center Undergorund w/ Servium, TBA     Vermillion, South Dakota
Nov 11 2008    TBA     Fargo, North Dakota
Nov 12 2008 TBA     Minneapolis, MN

Soup wrote this:

It’s pretty rare that I get something sent to me by a band I’ve never heard of that I like enough to order on vinyl immediately after listening to it (despite having a full CD copy already). Life’s Trade by Samothrace (of Lawrence, Kansas) is an album I just couldn’t resist (especially that nice gold vinyl they’ve got up at 20 Buck Spin’s website in very limited quantities – 150 copies). Combining the best parts of old-school and new-school doom sounds, this is probably one of the more original records to come out of a genre that, frankly, was starting to feel frustratingly stagnant despite the glaringly unexplored possibilities.

So onto the sound. It’s slow. It’s got a bit of a drone thing going on. But there are riffs. There’s interplay. There’s lead guitar! There are guitar solos! The vocals serve almost more as ambience than they do as anything explicitly lyrical (although the lyrics are great, especially by metal standards), most of the time mixed down just below the point of clarity. There’s a sort of post-rock-y sense of song structure, with songs building to crescendos rather than choruses. These things come together to make Samothrace one of the most exciting doom bands I’ve heard in a long time.

One thing I’m really thankful for is that this band has a good sense of when to break down into a quiet section. And they do this really tastefully. Despite being pretty clearly influenced by Agalloch and their contemporaries, there are no corny cleanly sung vocals or any of that junk (no disrespect intended to Agalloch, who are awesome, by the way). Just a quiet, contemplative moment in the song.

Also, the guitar solos here are surprisingly competent and bring to mind a more classic doom metal sound. While I’ve always gotten the feeling that a lot of bands playing doom metal recently were… uh… less than stellar musicians, I don’t get that feeling at all, here. The guitar solos are tastefully executed, and yet show a degree of musicianship that many bands in the genre are sorely lacking.

This band has single-handedly rekindled my waning interest in modern doom metal, and that’s gotta be worth something, at least. Give them a listen. Catch them on tour. Here’s hoping that Boise show ends up finding a venue. More info can be found at the band’s official MySpace, of course.