SONATA ARCTICA — Silence (review)

SONATA ARCTICA — Silence album cover Album · 2001 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Time Signature
Sing in silence...

Genre: Euro power metal

Like "Ecliptica", "Silence" impressed my positively. The style on this album is more or less the same as the "Ecliptica" with catchy and epic vocal hooklines and choruses, thundering drums and solid neoclassical keyboard and guitar acrobatics that would make both Yngwie Malmsteen and Ritchie Blackmore green with jealousy. The keyboards are given more space n this album and have also become more varied (and it may probably due to the entry of a new keyboard-player on this album). The music itself is also more varied. The song structures are a bit more complex compared to "Ecliptica", and some of the tracks are actually even kind of progressive.

The band has teamed up with an actor who delivers stories and vocals on some tracks - and, I must admit I feel that this move is a bit silly and actually disturbs the musical experience more than it enhances it. And in some cases it is just not convincing voice-acting, as in the introduction to 'The End of This Chapter' (a song that features an interesting bridge, by the way), where it falls completely flat.

There are also more ballads on this album than on the debut album, and some of them are quite good, I must say, but most of them I do not find convincing in any way.

"Silence" is not as catchy as "Ecliptica" but it's still a pretty good power metal album, I think - and the cheesometer is still kept at a reasonable level.
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