Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Solace Of Requiem was formed back in 2001 from the ashes of our original band, Sarcophagus, as teenagers. The original lineup was separated back in 2005 when our drummer, Luke Downing, decided to put the band away in order to pursue his career. So we got another drummer to fill in for Luke and eventually released another album, Utopia Reborn 2006, with Joe Walmer on the drums. Joe was eventually replaced by our current drummer, Dave Tedesco, back in 2006/2007. We also had our original guitarist quit the band to spend more time with his family, so we also refilled the guitarist spot a few times, but ultimately settled on Chris Armijo to record our guitars for our third album, The Great Awakening 2010. Our current guitarist, Richard Gulczynski, joined with us in 2011 when we were on tour with Vomitory and Prostitute Disfigurement throughout Europe. Richard came in to play guitar alongside Chris, for our tour that year. He did a really great job, so when Chris left SOR in 2013, we brought Richard in as our fulltime guitarist. And me, I have been in the band from the very beginning, watching people come and go. I suppose that means I am the one who is a glutton for punishment?!
 
How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music? 
SOR has a very odd style. We have taken the composition of our music to a level few have attempted. We had always taken our music seriously and utilized two guitar voices in a very unique way, but on our latest album, Casting Ruin, we took having two guitar voices to an all new level. By studying the “weaving” process done with binaural audio, I discovered a way of achieving a sort of “motion” inside my music and discovered a way to create a third “center” voice inside the middle of the weaving of the two distinct guitar sounds. We’ve always written music to where one guitar finishes/begins the musical sentences of the other guitar, but this is much more complex. The two guitar voices not only start and finish each other’s musical sentences, but they also create the illusion of a third voice, emanating from the center. This is with the composition, so it does affect our sound a great deal, but for the atmosphere of what we create, that is just pure dark and foreboding. We sound like a chaotic, but well-orchestrated, symphony of evil. There is very little to say in the realm of influences. We sound really strange, and there is just no precedents for what we sound like.
 
Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
Well, I don’t think I can be so bold as to suggest why it’s better to buy my album, as opposed to another metal artist’s album. However, I can comment as to why I believe all fans of metal music should support their chosen musical artwork and buy music and merchandise from their favorite bands. Metal fans, especially death and black metal fans, have chosen a musical style that is shunned by the mainstream. The style they have chosen proves that they walk a different path. Metalheads aren’t fooled by the latest pop song or the hottest reality TV show. Metalheads don’t care about those things and they prefer music to match their way of seeing life. That is why it is important for the fans to support metal by buying albums and merchandise, because the band is just like you are, not in the mainstream! The bands don’t make a lot of money in metal, not unless the band is huge. In most cases, the bands who play metal do it for the love of music, not the money. There is no “money”. Sometimes, bands can’t afford the studio and/or blow all their money on the band, and then have to quit because they can’t afford to play in a band anymore! It’s sad! That is why you support metal! You support it because it matters!
 
What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media? 
Our new release, Casting Ruin (2014), is our fourth album. Our first, self-titled album, was released back in 2004. The production of our first album was quite poor, but it had an “old-school” quality to it and so it worked pretty well with the material. Our second album, Utopia Reborn, was made in Germany back in 2006. We were signed to a small German label at the time, so we had a good studio to record in. We also had Andy Classen master our album, which was really cool. That album also had a song which had Bret Hoffmann (Malevolent Creation) as a guest vocalist. It was a good album with a good recording and it had a few more “blackened” parts in it than the previous album had. Our third album, The Great Awakening, was released in 2010. This album hits a little closer to what our newer material sounds like. It’s very fast, very brutal and complicated as hell. It has a lot of elements of both black and death metal, but is insanely technical. We released the album ourselves in 2010, but we had actually recorded the album and shopped it around to labels a couple of years before we ultimately released it. We got into a long negotiation with a bigger label that ended up screwing us over. But, you live and you learn. . . . Our newest album, Casting Ruin, was released on August 29, 2014, by ViciSolum Productions. It was recorded by Brian Elliot at Mana Studios in Florida, and has an amazing sound! As I mentioned before, we sound very odd, and this album definitely exemplifies that statement. It is just something you have to hear to fully understand what it is. Concerning the feedback, we have received mostly high scores and good write-ups from all of our reviews. There have of course been the occasional person that doesn’t like it, but they are usually the type that like Slayer, bands that sound like Slayer and think all other bands that don’t sound just like Slayer, suck. We’re not old school and we don’t sound like anything you’ve ever heard before. So we’re really odd and most people are loving it. There have been a few exceptions, there always is! But almost all of our press for this album has been overwhelmingly positive.
 
Do you play live as well? How's your live activity so far?
We’ve been a touring band in the United States and in Europe for over 8 years. We play mainly underground stuff, but we’ve been on some bigger tours. We’ve supported Vital Remains, Incantation, Resurrection, Vomitory & Prostitute Disfigurement, as I had mentioned above. We also have a European tour with Ulcerate and Wormed planned for this November and December. We’ll have some more tours being announced soon too, because of supporting the album release, so we’ll have more tour dates added to our websites soon.
 
What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
I think the major points to our band is in the way we compose music, write our lyrics, what our band stands for and what we do about it. The way we compose music is very special. As I said above, we combine two guitar voices in such a way as to create a third guitar voice in the center. The guitars are panned hard left and hard right, so you can actually hear two different songs coming from the left and right speakers. Those two songs make a third song when combined. It’s a bit trickier than that, but that’s what it is, in a basic way. Our lyrics are a triple entendre. The lyrics have a literal meaning, taken at face value. They also have a musical meaning, pertaining to the exact musical phrase that is occurring at the time that the lyrics are sung. And lastly, they have a secular meaning. More specifically, they tell about the poison of religion and the detriment caused by its practice. Which brings me perfectly into what we stand for. We stand for a secular world with secular laws made for secular people. It’s a little too late in our history to be believing in fairytales and to give audience or credibility to this obvious charade. At the price of our continued existence, it must be eradicated. Our obvious and open stance on this issue is not only well represented within our music, but we also put our money where our mouth is. Which brings me to my last point. We donate 10% of our online clothing sales to several children’s organizations that teach secular values and/or contribute specifically to science, art and/or music education. You can read all about our charity work, lyrics, message and all that stuff on our websites.
 
What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
Right now our main goal is to tour for this new album. We will of course be going on the Ulcerate tour this November and December, but we also have a few other tours in the works for 2015. In the next few months things should really start speeding up for the band. We have a lot of promotion for the new album. We have a new music video for Soiling The Fields Of Putridity, which is an artistic statement about religion’s stranglehold on science, and we have a really cool album trailer too. The tour dates with Ulcerate are posted, we have a free stream of our entire album on our homepage and we are always adding more stuff, so please visit our website for updated info about what’s next for SOR.
 
Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
All of our info can be found on our websites. Remember to checkout our “uncensored” videos, photos, music and merch. 10% of all clothing sales goes to help kids! Check below for our website links. Where you’ll see our tour dates, discography and everything else you could ever want to forget about SOR. Hail Science!
FREE STREAM | BUY IT NOW: http://solreq.com/news.html
Watch The Album Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dFeiY62HP4
VIDEO - Uncensored (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DhHvyLhmRI
VIDEO - Censored (SFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MamIw-NnZXw
Buy Merchandise: http://solreq.com/order.html
HOMEPAGE: http://www.solreq.com 
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/solaceofrequiem 
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/solreq 
REVERBNATION: http://www.reverbnation.com/solaceofrequiem 
GOOGLE PLUS: https://plus.google.com/+Solreq 
SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/solaceofrequiem 
MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/solreq

September 2014