Solitary Ritual is an one-man project from Greece, created by Giorgos Triantafyllou, who has been living in various parts of Greece during the last few years, due to job requirements. As it's an one-man band, one could not give an exact formation date, but work in the "band's" self-titled first album began in 2014 and it was released on August 20, 2017, on Bandcamp. It is an experimental / progressive metal abum, not falling exclusively into a specific branch of metal, but incorporating a lot of influences from various genres and other kinds of music as well. All the instruments used in the album are synthetic vst sounds, except for the vocals. The lyrics of the album are all inspired by personal experiences and deal mostly with personal issues, views about social matters and/or philosophical subjects/concepts, consciously trying to possess a “poetic quality” at the same time.
Giorgos Triantafyllou comments: "Listening to music has been my favourite pastime since I can remember myself. I have been writing (unpublished) music for many years, but it was only relatively recently that I made my mind as to what direction exactly I wanted my efforts to take. My aim with this record was simply to express myself both musically and lyrically. Musically, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, but metal is the one I identify the most with. I tried to create a metal album that would also incorporate elements from other styles of music, all passed through a “metal filter”, something different and personal. Lyrically, I've always seen music as a great, if not the best, way of expressing your emotions and views in a way that touches another person's inner part and makes him/her feel more in touch with themselves, realize the world around them in a better way and feel “relieved”, in a sense, that there are also other people who have similar thoughts and sensitivities as they do. There have been a lot of songs from other bands and artists that have touched me personally, that I almost perceived as if they were written for me, in a way. It would be rewarding for me to know that other people identify with what I created, in the way that I have indentified with the creations of others in the past and present (and hopefully in the future, too)."