Following up on Ethical Dilemma, Cynical Silence doesn’t do anything different from the first Vass/Katsionis album. This s a very good thing as that debut was really good and if anything they’ve gone harder and more proggy for its follow up.
All the music and production is again just Bob Katsionis, exploring the classic prog metal sounds of Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Shadow Gallery and Queensryche with a few modern prog textures of Leprous and Tesseract popped in on first song The End Of Innocence and the title track. He shows why he’s a brilliant musician and producer as it sounds like a full band, the guitars are chunky and fluid on Vengeance Is Mine, the keys/synths twitching and flowing with melody while the bass drives the baroque ‘Yes-goes-heavy’ Invisible Thread as the drums of Ross Lagos are great, on the heavy opener and the final track My Island Is Home.
In Billy Vass, I have mentioned before Katsionis has picked a perfect vocalist for an album such as this, not only are his lyrics clever, emotional and philosophical too, his vocal style is totally unique (though not to fans of Terra Incognito), from the more restrained approach of A Day Without Loss (For Nora) to the histrionics of the riff happy Answers, he gives it all he has, you can’t fault the passion and conviction behind his performance. As I said the lyrics are philosophical dealing with ideas of life, the universe and the darkness that many dwell inside.
What could be a controversial move though is that the artwork was created by artificial intelligence, the lyrics put into OpenGPT and then using these prompts in Midjourney to make the cover art. It’s great looking and does reflect the nature of the album well but it may annoy some artists. However I can’t draw a stickman so I’m concentrating on the music and again Vass/Katsionis deliver metal that is progressive but has chorus hooks you’ll be singing after it finishes, and that my friends is the benefit of experience, nothing to be cynical over here and not much silence either. Prog metal marvel. 9/10
ISON - Stars & Embers (Avantgarde Music)
There were doubts whether Daniel Änghede would continue the ISON project after Heike Langhans left the band in 2019, but what came of that was 2020’s Aurora, probably the most ethereal and harrowing record they had made. It made it clear to Daniel that ISON would be continuing due to the incredible songwriting and guest vocal performances on the record. After this though Daniel went through a period of writers block, knowing that ISON needed to stay relevant and keep releasing material he found his creativity again and began to compose Stars & Embers.
For the vocals he approached Lisa Cuthbert, whom he had been a part of Draconian with and who also sang on Aurora, her beautiful, multi-tracked ethereal voice is key to the reductive orchestrations of tracks such as Formations, my favourite song on the album. It’s really affecting due to Lisa’s vocals while she duet’s brilliantly with Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquility/The Halo Effect) on Peregrination, their two vocals binding together as one, but keeping a duality as well. Mikael is the first male guest singer ISON has welcomed for a while, Daniel doing most of the male vocals, but when you hear a song such as Being Of Light where all three blend wonderfully. It adds a new dimension to the post-metal/shoegaze/dreamlike music of ISON.
But Mikael is not the only guest on this album either, yes Lisa is the main singer but circle&wind returns on Radiant Void, reprising her place from Aurora, while Dimming contributes to the spectral Luminiscent Reverie, the haunting opener. Instrumentally Daniel crafted the music with analog synths/drum machine etc, unforgiving of mistakes, he had to do things in a few takes as possible, it means that much of the music behind the vocal wonderment leans on the organic sounds of Vangelis, Alan Parsons, Van Der Graff Generator et al but in keeping with the brooding, dark atmospheres associated with ISON.
Going a bit Depeche Mode on Horizons, while the influences of Crippled Black Phoenix and overlap with bands such as BRUIT ≤ are obvious. Stars & Embers is a heartfelt, enveloping musical journey that will touch your emotions with its brilliance. 9/10
Heathen Foray - Oathbreaker (Massacre Records)
Folk/Viking Metal is a pretty extensive genre that moves from the black metal sound of Finntroll, to the accessible face of Amon Amarth all the way throug to the beer soaked revelry of Korpiklaani, most folk metal bands either belong in two categories of root genre though, power metal or death metal. Heathen Foray take the death metal side, just, though the guitars are very power metal. Mainly though they combine melodic death metal with folk/pagan influences fo sing along choruses and traditional instrumentation that breaks up the blastbeats.
Folk/Viking Metal is a pretty extensive genre that moves from the black metal sound of Finntroll, to the accessible face of Amon Amarth all the way throug to the beer soaked revelry of Korpiklaani, most folk metal bands either belong in two categories of root genre though, power metal or death metal. Heathen Foray take the death metal side, just, though the guitars are very power metal. Mainly though they combine melodic death metal with folk/pagan influences fo sing along choruses and traditional instrumentation that breaks up the blastbeats.
Now Heathen Foray don't embody characters you'll see no Longships or troll ears or anything else, they look like a metalcore band in their pictures but their lyrics are drawn from the pagan beliefs on a cleaner environment, sustainable living, and social solidarity, this has gained them the description of "neo pagan metal" but I'd just say that these Austrians fuse Children Of Bodom with Amon Amarth while also avoiding the vein of NS that runs through a lot of the pagan genre.
Singing in both English and German, Oathbreaker is an album that will continue to excite fans of music with a stong ideology towards good and some heavy/melodic music to put it too. 7/10
Children Of The Reptile - Heavy Is The Head (Self-Release)
Children Of The Reptile - Heavy Is The Head (Self-Release)
Part of the NWOTHM North Carolina’s Children Of The Reptile owe their sound to Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol or Warlord putting them with bands such as Eternal Champion and Visigoth. Having been a band for more than a decade, they have the chops for sure, the twin axes and gallops nailed firmly to some sword and sorcery lyrics.
Big vocals placed on more theatrical performances ripe for shirtless battles on forgotten plains. It’s all a bit silly and overly dramatic but entertaining too. Tracks such as Seven Days Of Fire are quite modern while Last Words (Ruins Ride) has a load of Lizzy. Unfortunately the production is quite flat, especially the drums and bass. I think they’re attempting to sound like an authentic 80’s style production job but to me it’s a bit like a cassette that has been a little too worn. It diminishes the impact of the music, no matter how epic, progressive or anthemic it tries to be, it sounds like it was recorded in a different room to the mics.
However it's a pretty authentic NWOTHM sounding record, if you play it loud enough (which you should) it'll hit home and get you rocking in your chair so grab your sword and shield and get listening. 7/10
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