SINISTER — The Silent Howling (review)

SINISTER — The Silent Howling album cover Album · 2008 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
UMUR
"The Silent Howling" is the 8th full-length studio album by Dutch death metal act Sinister. The album was released through Massacre Records in August 2008. It´s the successor to "Afterburner" from 2006 and features two lineup changes since the predecessor as Bas van den Bogaard has joined as the band´s new bassist and drummer Paul Beltman has been replaced by Edwin van den Eeden. Guitarist Alex Paul handled both guitars and bass on "Afterburner (2006)", but solely plays the guitars on "The Silent Howling". The remaining member of the lineup is lead vocalist Aad Kloosterwaard.

"Afterburner (2006)" was a bit of a comeback for Sinister after a couple of sub par albums and a shorter hiatus, and "The Silent Howling" continues the brutal and powerful death metal style of the predecessor. There are only 7 tracks featured on the album, but all tracks are relatively long. There is no standard in death metal regarding song lengths, but 5 out of 7 tracks on "The Silent Howling" exceed the 6 minutes mark, and the title track is 10:16 minutes long, and that is after all a bit unusual. They are generally quite adventurous death metal tracks, and while I don´t want to throw the term "progressive" around loosely, there is definitely a mindset in the songwriting to create something a bit out of the ordinary within the death metal style.

Tempo changes, great use of dynamics, brutal groove laden riffs, relatively intelligible brutal growling, and a technically well playing band. "The Silent Howling" is in most ways an intriguing release. The album features a well sounding production too (although the bass drums feature a clicky sound, which isn´t always pleasant sounding), and upon conclusion Sinister have managed to create another engaging high quality death metal release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.
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