Soulers

Soulers
Dai Maō with his 7-string guitar in December 2018.
Background information
Origin	Saint-Paulin, Quebec, Canada
Genres	Doom metal
Years active	2016–present
Labels	independent
Website	Soulers.wixsite.com
Current members	Dai Maō

Soulers is a Canadian doom metal solo project from Saint-Paulin, Quebec formed in 2016 by the mysterious Dai Maō. Since 2017, he keeps releasing albums every month or week, depending how time he has.

The debut Soulers album was recorded in 2016, but was not released to the public until August 11, 2017.

History

Soulers was formed in the summer of 2016 when Dai Maō recorded several unreleased demos. The first album to be released to the public was Beautiful Like a Rainbow on August 11, 2017. It was followed by two albums titled The Forest and Soulers in September of that year.

Time to Prey was more Satanic than the previous albums, and notably featured more sludge elements. November 25's Trip - The Satanic Sounds of Soulers was the last album to be released in 2017. In 2018, Dai Maō started a saga of albums simply known as The 2018 Saga, which started on January 1 with Yami no Kokoro Kara Shuppatsu and ended on December 25 with The Cycles of Helplessness and Awareness.

To this day, Dai Maō keeps recording and releasing new music under the Soulers name, depending how much time he has.

Musical style and influences

Musical style

Musically, Soulers is known for evolving on every album, according to its influences. In this sense, Dai Maō avoids to be categorized. In its albums, Soulers experiments with other sub-genres of doom metal, like death-doom, sludge metal, drone metal and funeral doom metal.

The project is also known for its extremely long songs, many of which exceed the 10-20-minute mark in length. For example, "Clean Land" (from Yami no Kokoro Kara Shuppatsu) clocks in at 28:05. The longest song, however, is "Cycle Three: Huge Abyss" (from The Cycles of Helplessness and Awareness) and is the only Soulers song to exceed the 30-minute mark, clocking in at 32:08.

Influences

Soulers is influenced by many doom metal bands like Mournful Congregation, My Dying Bride, Funeral Moth, Skepticism etc. Other influences include Sleep, Yob, Boris, Sunn O))), Black Sabbath etc.

Recording songs

Unlike many heavy metal musicians, Dai Maō does not use any paper to write a riff. He uses it only to write lyrics and creates all riffs himself without writing it.

Members

Current Members

• Dai Maō – all instruments, vocals (2016–present)

Up until the Descend from Wherever We Shall Ascend album, Dai Maō's name was listed in Japanese kanji alphabet until he decided to correct it.

Discography

Studio albums

2017

• Beautiful Like a Rainbow (August 11)
• The Forest (September 1)
• Soulers (September 10)
• Time to Prey (October 30)
• Trip - The Satanic Sounds of Soulers (November 25)

2018

• Yami no Kokoro Kara Shuppatsu (January 1)
• Operatic (January 14)
• The Cosmic Dimension (January 25)
• Master of Rituality (February 25)
• Vol. 10 (March 31)
• Soulers Bloody Soulers (April 29)
• The Urilia Text (July 17)
• To That Great Hope Which Does Not Wane Even in the Nights of Solitude (August 25)
• Descend from Wherever We Shall Ascend (October 28)
• The Storming Heavens as a Father to All Broken Bodies (November 16)

• The Cycles of Helplessness and Awareness (December 25)

2019

• Island on Fire (January 3)
• Rosetta (February 5)
• Shadows of Ancient Cults (April 20)
• Hai (May 30)

Extended plays

2018

• Coverture (January 23)
• Swallow the Sky (May 19)

2019

• Ineffectual (March 9)
• Jane (March 9)
• Gilgamesh (March 9)

Compilations

2018

• The Collection (January 5)

Singles

2017

• "The Blizzard"
• "The Wizard of the Night"
• "Burn in Hell"
• "Funeral Skies

2018

• "Cornellia"
• "Electric Blizzard"
• "Mind Funeral"
• "High Enough"
• "RadioWizard"
• "Ancestral Visions"

2019

• "Under My Gleam"

External links

• Bandcamp
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Encyclopedia Metallum