lukretion After releasing their second full-length album Altum, Silentium hit again the shelves with this EP, SI.VM E.T A.V.VM (Silentium Est Aurum, “silence is golden” in Latin). It contains four tracks, for just a little over 20 minutes of music. All tracks are cut out of the same recording sessions at Studio Watercastle where Altum was recorded. Two of the tracks are previously unreleased, while the other two are re-arranged and re-recorded versions of songs that had first appeared on the band’s first two demo tapes (“Grieving Beauty” appeared on the 1996 demo Illacrimõ and “Lament” on the 1998 demo Caméne Misera).

Stylistically, the EP sits halfway between the classically influenced doom/gothic metal of Silentium’s 1999 debut LP (Infinita Plango Vulnera) and the leaner symphonic gothic metal of their sophomore record, Altum. The two previously unreleased tracks lean more towards the sonic style of Altum. “Apart” is a nice, catchy gothic piece that plays on the alternation between male croon, female soprano vocals and grim but melodic blackened growls. Silentium have always impressed me for their lush and classy symphonic arrangements and “Apart” offers another great example of the band’s great ear for writing classically influenced metal music. The orchestral breakdown half through the song, where organ and violin are left alone to play against each other, is both surprising and exhilarating, and adds a new, exciting dimension to an otherwise fairly ordinary song. The other new song “I Bleed for…” is less impressive. It’s another blackened gothic piece that is however somewhat lacking in the vocal department, with singer Matti Aikio battling unsuccessfully against the bland and weak melodies he is given to sing. The arrangements are also not quite as smooth as in other tracks, the song’s different sections not flowing very well into one another.

The two re-recorded songs are instead more similar in style to the material we find on the band’s debut LP, Infinita Plango Vulnera. These are the tracks that I like the most. The level of sophistication in the instrumental arrangements is breath-taking. Take the beginning of “Grieving Beauty”: a sombre clean guitar arpeggio starts the song, and is quickly accompanied by a delicate piano arpeggio and Tiina Lehvonen’s wordless soprano singing. The rest of the band joins soon afterwards, the violin and the lead guitar introducing beautiful counterpoint melodies that will form the main classical theme of the song. It’s the best instrumental passage of the whole album and shows the great songwriting and arranging ability of this Finnish ensemble. It’s just a pity that, vocally, the song is a bit weak, with Matti Aikio struggling again to find a strong melody to sing. Things get definitely better on “Lament”, probably the best track on the EP. The instrumental beginning of the song is again stunning, the violin and the lead guitar perfectly laid over a beautiful melancholic arpeggio. Tiina Lehvonen takes the lead on this song, with a good, catchy melody both in the verse and the chorus. Matti Aikio contributes blackened growls that play nicely against Tina’s ethereal soprano-like vocals, in perfect beauty-and-the-beast style. The second half of the song introduces multiple instrumental breaks, adding complexity and substance to an already magnificent song.

All in all, this is a very pleasant EP, nicely bridging Silentium’s early classical/baroque doom sound with the slightly more commercial symphonic gothic style the band pursued in the rest of their discography. As I am a big fan of the band’s debut album Infinita Plango Vulnera, I am quite fond of this EP that, in at least half of its compositions, harks back to the heavily classically influenced doom of the debut LP. I may even prefer this to Altum, which I find perhaps a tad too convoluted and difficult to get into. Either way, whether you are a fan of Silentium’s early or late sound, this little record will not disappoint.

[Also published on metal-archives.com]