UMUR
"The Silver Lining Between the Stars" is the 2nd full-length studio album by multi-national progressive metal act Chaos Over Cosmos. The album was independently released in August 2021. It´s the successor to "The Unknown Voyage" from 2018 although the band have released a couple of EPs and "The Ultimate Multiverse (2020)" compilation album in the years between the two album releases. Chaos Over Cosmos is basically a one-man project featuring Polish musician Rafał Bowman (and a revolving door of lead vocalists) who plays all instruments and handles all programming on the album. American singer KC Lyon is new in the lineup on "The Silver Lining Between the Stars" and he replaces Joshua Ratcliff.
Stylistically the material on "The Silver Lining Between the Stars" is technical/progressive metal with screaming aggressive vocals and clean vocals on the closing track "The Sins Between the Stars". Blistering fast-paced lead guitar themes and solos, heavy riffs, keyboards/synths and well programmed drums. The album features a futuristic sci-fi atmosphere which is further enhanced by the lyrics and the cover artwork.
"The Silver Lining Between the Stars" features 5 tracks and a total playing time of 35:11 minutes. Opening track "Violent Equilibrium" is an almost 11 minutes long composition and it´s an unconventionally structured song too, as it´s fully instrumental for the first 5 minutes before the vocals kick in. Already at this point it should be obvious to anyone listening that Bowman is an extraordinary musician and a skilled composer too. My jaw drops several times during "Violent Equilibrium" and that continues on "The Last Man in Orbit" (which is a slightly more synth heavy track) and on the instrumental "Eternal Return".
Chaos Over Cosmos could easily have opted to continue down that path on the next two tracks, but here´s where Bowman throws in a couple of surprises as "Control ZED" features a couple of more simple and catchy moments, which at times sounds almost punkish (while still being a very technical and progressive track), and "The Sins Between the Stars" shows the band in an even more eclectic mood, as it´s a slow building progressive track featuring many different sections and atmospheres, and as mentioned above also clean vocals.
The album is a well produced affair, and I think the programmed drums are well arranged and pretty well sounding too. The only flaw is that the hi-hat sometimes has a digital tone, but it´s a minor flaw, and the programmed drums overall work well. Upon conclusion Chaos Over Cosmos have made great advances in terms of songwriting (although there are times when the different sections feel a bit disjointed), performances, and production values, and "The Silver Lining Between the Stars" is a high quality technical/progressive metal release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.