This exiting new band originates form Holland and this their debut shows great musical talent. The band's style can easily be connected with
Symphony X but this is only seen from a broad perspective,
Silent Edge indeed has something unique to bring forth.
A mystic and dark atmosphere seem to be a continuous characteristic together with an extremely powerful rhythm section, dominant keyboard arrangements and a high degree of technical ability in general.
A sure winner is the almost 9 minute
Wasted Lands, a song that balances its different parts in a very dynamic way. The ultra fast instrumental mid-section is very impressive, filled with ultra fast drums and hard guitar riffs. There seems to prevail an epic mood throughout the songs development that binds things nicely together, created by varied keyboard arrangements by Minggus Gaspersz.
The Curse I Hold Within is an acoustic guitar/vocal ballad that has a very special feel to it, Emo Suripatty shows explorative acoustic guitar techniques and Willem Verwoert sings the depressing lyric with a cool laid back style. This said the chorus comes in decent but not over the top catchy in either form or execution, anyway the flow of the track works well and overall this is a rather successful ballad.
The instrumental
Crusades works soothingly as an intermission piece, being a high paced melodic track.
In
For Ancient Times we find an energy-packed song that starts out with thunder and lightning, lots of change in structure with grooving bass passages and technical drumming delivered by Marco Kleinnibbelink.
The really innovative last part of the song is one of the most impressive elements on the entire record. It's like the song stops and takes a completely new path with a quiet mesmerizing keyboard atmosphere, I get a picture of a gloomy pyramid tomb kind of scenario in my mind when listening to this special passage, great stuff.
Under A Shaded Moon takes a faster road where each instrument offers great skill and the interconnection between them fits perfectly, making the way for a really great song.
Lots of intensity is wrapped into this one and the roaring guitar solo has a really catchy vibe.
Rebellion is a powerful symphonic journey that features an extensive shifting guitar/keyboard solo that has a high level of technical flair, the song contains many great details to enjoy and its highly complex nature makes it a very ingenious experience.
Rebellion (The Awakening) pursues a calmer style with its calm piano rhythm nicely mixed with strong vocal lines, I nevertheless miss something holding the song together in a tighter way, its form being rather unstructured.
Even though this album has many great songs and fine passages there is also moments of lesser quality.
Lost Conscience follows a very stationary path that quickly becomes too uninteresting and the rhythm very monotone, it has some great underlying keys and the lead guitar work is also quite enjoyable, but overall something exiting is clearly missing and average is my ending conclusion evaluating this track.
The first two songs are hard pumping and have some great progressive passages but the really outstanding elements or are not exactly all over the place, a catchier chorus wouldn't have hurt either.
It's not only in the music that a gloomy vibe presents itself; the lyrics also follow suit form time to time. There seems to be an interest in mysterious elements but also a clear concentration in personal issues of doubt, frustration but also determination, all in all cool lyrics that match each song well.
The members of the band all contribute with great musical skill. Especially the powerful guitar work and splendid keyboard arrangements are very much worth appreciating.
The bass unfortunately keeps itself a bit in the background when it comes to actually forming the songs, but nevertheless gives each track a tight Audible Edge ;). Drums are solid and with an appropriate level of cool twists, vocally the result is
vigorous but not always with the same melodic vibe though.
The music is nicely packed into a tight and powerful production, the drums could have been giving more weight but overall a clean sound that presents the music well.
It takes some time to get into The Eyes Of The Shadow, but after a healthy bunch of spins new things presents themselves and the songs seems to come more into form. Two aspects seem to sum up much of this very good debut: Musical skill and powerful arrangements.
Written by
Tommy Wednesday, October 29, 2003
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