SONATA ARCTICA — Silence (review)

Album · 2001 · Power Metal

2.5/5 · 2011-07-20
Diogenes

Silence is the Two-Face of Sonata Arctica’s discography. You know who Two-Face is, don’t you? He’s the guy in Batman who has a fudged-up face, duh. Half of his face is very handsome, and the other half is corroded by acid. He also has multiple personality disorder, and is so concerned with fate that he has to flip a coin whenever he wants to decide on something significant. This is the story of Silence. Half of it rules. The other half does not rule. Flip a coin labeled “fast song” on heads and “slow song” on tails, and you’ll either get a song that totally kicks ass or one that will make time slow to a crawl. Basically, on this album, there’s a direct relationship between how fast a song is and how good it is. Allow me to elaborate…

First, the fast songs. Those would be the good parts. Early on, Sonata Arctica still played a style of power metal that was very similar to that of Stratovarius: lots of double-bass drumming, fast riffage and soaring vocals. There was nothing they did better, and here it shows. Yes, it’s generic, but Weballergy, False News Travel Fast, Black Sheep, Land of the Free, San Sebastian, and Wolf and Raven are so awesome that it doesn’t matter. Each of them feature hook after hook, addicting as power metal can possibly be. Everyone shines on these tracks, with Jani Liimatainen laying down the riffs and dueling with (unfortunately temporary) keyboardist Mikko Harkin (Black Sheep being the best example of this). The moods are generally uplifting, which is a stark contrast to what would become of the band in their later years. I’m telling you, the fast songs on Silence are about as good as you can get when you listen to Sonata Arctica…heck, they’re some of the best songs in the power metal genre. If you’re looking for happy, powerful, over-the-top Euro metal, consider your search over!

Now, for the slow songs. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, these are the bad parts of the album. These are the songs that do not rule. They un-rule, or whatever the opposite word is. They’re boring, sure, but most ballads are; they’re not supposed to be bombastic balls of energy (that’s what the other half of the album is for, remember?). No, the problem with these ballads is, there’s nothing there. At this point in his career, Tony Kakko still did not speak the best English, so the lyrics are extra corny and stupid. There really isn’t much emotion being conveyed; that is, unless you like lots of whining in your slow songs. There’s plenty of that. But no, there’s nothing catchy or cool that makes me want to listen to the slow songs again. Making things worse, there are several of them. Several slow songs that do nothing. On Ecliptica, Letter to Dana was at least tolerable because it was the only cheesy ballad on there (Replica was good), putting less of a strain on my dear skip button. But on Silence, there is WAY too much material that is cheesy and boring. Last Drop Falls and Tallulah, the two “proper” ballads, trudge along as Kakko sings about a loved one and…I don’t know what else, because I almost fell asleep. The End of This Chapter and Sing in Silence end well, but by then it’s too late because the earlier parts of the songs are so slow and bad.

This brings me to another point: the album is just too long. Why are there even that many songs on here, anyway? Revontulet is a cool interlude, but it’s misplaced, being right before a lame ballad, and is thus neutralized. If Sonata Arctica scrapped one of the ballads and one of the slower songs, this album would be great, because it would be mostly faster songs with just enough slow cheese to keep things varied. That’s what they did on Ecliptica…why couldn’t they do that here, too? Yes, Silence is “balanced”…but sometimes too much balance can be bad.

The other aspects of the album aren’t really worth more than a mention. The production is fine (no problems here); this being Sonata Arctica’s sophomore effort, it’s clearer than the mix on Ecliptica, with Tommy Portimo’s bass drums being more audible and Harkin’s keyboards sounding as wonderful and flowery as can be. The bass is once again quiet, but with so much else going on, it doesn’t need to be loud anyway.

You could say that Silence is where Sonata Arctica got their reputation for writing incredible power metal songs along with some pretty bad ballads. Now, remember that this album is not total garbage. If you can buy part of this album, by all means, do it. Just make sure you buy the faster songs. I could continue to make references about this album being half good and half bad (Look, look at the album cover. LOOK! It’s divided into two parts! AAAH! Conspiracy!), but I think I’ve made my point by now. Fast=good, slow=bad. Class dismissed!