Stephen
I missed this band when they released their debut in 2008 but finally had a chance to be introduced to their music after a friend recommended me Silent Call's second effort, "Greed", and told me that the band has a perfect blend of melodic heavy metal and progressive metal. After several spins, I must agree with him, this Swedish quintet definitely knows what are they doing, and the mix clearly reminds me of Circus Maximus and Vanden Plas. The problem here is the lack of originality and not many outstanding tracks to listen, in fact, some are relatively boring and too average.
I can only name 3 superb tracks here. First would be "Every Day", starting softly with a gentle keys/acoustic guitar intro, the song exploded big with a swaggering DT's "Metropolis" style, and topped out with a gigantic chorus. Ulfstrom's keyboard solo steals the show and this is my most fave part of the album. Second would be "Dream Tomorrow", a midtempo tune with a perfect arrangement of Verse/Chorus. This song didn't have a very complex structure but thoroughly enjoyable. The third one would be "Unbreakable" and Silent Call tried an uptempo approach, with a brilliant guitar/keys intro before a chugging riffs crawling in to turn this song into a monstrous track.
Couple of potential tracks that could have done better is "I Am My Nation" and "Falling From Grace", but other than that, most of them are skippable. Not to mention that they overloaded the album with too many ballads. "Through The Endless Night" and "When The Angels Call Your Name" actually quite okay but I don't see any hint that these type of songs can be a chart breaker.
Overall, "Greed" is a bit disappointing and not that it's a bad album, but it's way too overrated. The musicianship is admiring but Silent Call needs some more time to evolve to a better stage, sharpening their songwriting's skill, and hopefully their next one will be much better than this.