Silent Descent
Mind Games

A few questions immediately popped into my mind when opening up the envelope with this and some more releases from Rising Records, I wondered when looking at the cover artwork which the target audience for this album was and why they selected the worst photo that was included with this album for a cover. It would have been a sexy album had they used one of the better images from the booklet instead, but never judge a book by its cover they say and maybe they are correct. This british septet are releasing their second album of their musical style which they call trance metal, some say that it is a lot like the three similar bands above this text and that it is not really metal and a dishonour to the genre. What a load of bullshit that latter is but I read something in that style about the band’s first album called Duality, a duality of style one might call their style.

It is metalcore meets trance, which of course is metal meats the nightclubs or wherever such music is played. Simply put however, it is more of the modern kind of melodic death metal with clean vocal choruses for catchyness and some growling in the verses, a touch of Gothenburg style and a touch of sweaty dancefloor or something. These keys and samplings or whatever you call it is what is most noticeable in this albums stylings, along with the dreadful cover photo which do not do much justice to the model. Judging by the lyrical content one might suggest that it is geared towards the young teens considering the pubertal lyrics that I noticed when skimming the lyrics. There is a slight variation over the songs on this album but all songs are built around the same framework and none really differ to any larger extent. The production is quite modern and fairly good but nothing spectacular and the same can be said about the vocals that aren’t spectacular in any of the forms they use on this album.

When first hearing this album I thought it really sucked, and was quite terrible to be honest but things change and this album grows a bit on you I would say and in the end I think it is an interesting album. The trance elements added to this adds a quite cool styling to this otherwise fairly standardised melodic death metal music these guys has to offer. I think you can call these guys fairly unique in one way but at the same they they are not as the only thing unique they have is that they use trance elements instead of the traditional modern melodic death metal keys because it is typical in song structure and everything, only the trance elements differ from what is the standard. I think they could have been a bit more brave to be honest.

This album is interesting, but it is neither bad nor is it good, just a standard album with some interesting stuff added. I would say that these guys are to much cowards to really do something that is striking because when you get past the initial idea of it being unique you realise that it is just an ordinary album in a slightly different suit. And in the end we can describe this album as an ordinary one with some fun elements added, some stupid things are there as well so all in all I find this being an album that neither impress nor disappoint.

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