Metal is a genre that is so overwhelmingly dominated by bands that it makes listeners more likely to assume solo artists will sound amateurish at best (unless of course you happen to be Devin Townsend or Misha Mansoor’s Bulb). In this regard, Adam Washington stands out as a clear anomaly. While solo metal artist records hold a stereotype of “terrible solo progressive metalcore bedroom project,” this record is not that. Instead, this solo artist has managed to stand out in a sea of modern brutality by focusing on the more palatable end of the genre’s spectrum.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/arts-essays/2022/adam-washington-artifacts-i-review