The French Solid State were founded in 1999 and they belong to the genre of "Hard Rock", influenced mainly,by the U.S. scene and bands such as Extreme, Bon Jovi or Pink Cream 69 (Deris era). "So Solid" is their second release after their debut album by the name "Deep side of the tube".
The album enters with a very promising instrumental song, but what follows can’t be described as "influenced compositions".
"A Night at the Opera" and "For All Mankind" are two fine examples of non-interesting songs, with bad vocal-choruses thatalmost seem to be out of tone. Till now, nothing remarkable to say about "So Solid", typical, meaningless songs that you have heard a thousand times. Next track enters and something starts to shake. Hard-rock riffing, up-tempo groove and a catchy chorus makes "A Place in Your Life" a pleasant surprise to my ears. This feeling , keeps going on as "Sweet" enters and followed by the rest of the tracks. Nothing very special, but just easy listening hard rock compositions, with a melodic touch. This release consists of different type of songs in general, from "hard-to-metal rock" (like "A Night at the Opera"), "hard-to-funk rock" (like my favourite, "I Hate You"), to "Country-style" (!!) like "Band On The Road", accompanied by an overall good production that makes it easy-to-follow.
In general "So Solid" is nothing special , but to be honest I found some very good moments. The major issue that ones notices, is that the songs are unequal and sometimes have no connection, one with another.I would also prefer the band to be less "experimental" and focus to more relevant to "Hard-Rock" elements. Moreover, if the first two tracks were left out, I would probably like and rate this release more, but for now...

John "L.O.V.E. Machine" Litinakis


Album Line Up :       
Pit          - lead vocals
Manu C   - guitars + vocals
Jay         - keyboards + vocals
Squal      - bass
Jean-Luc  - drums