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Silent Force

Walk The Earth

Written by: PP on 03/04/2007 14:39:56

Melodic power metal (or heavy metal) will always either sound extremely cheezy and boring, or emotionally engaging, powerful and innovative. Iron Maiden is the case of the latter, and Silent Force, featuring the legendary Primal Fear guitarist Alex Beyrodt, is the case of the prior. "Walk The Earth" is their fourth album of vast soundscapes, unusually high pitched male vocals and colossal melodic guitar and synth work, but it still fails to be as interesting as anything by Primal Fear.

On a couple of songs, Silent Force sounds so much like Iron Maiden that one would expect Bruce Dickinson himself to shout out the next vocals. "Man & Machine" especially sounds like its guitars were lifted straight from an 80s Maiden album, complete DC Cooper's Dickinson-like vocals, and while in this case the approach works to some extent, the rest of the album doesn't. I could name about twenty bands off the top of my head who sound exactly like Silent Force do, and though their solos are technically proficient and riffs don't sound bad either, I've heard this stuff so many times before that it has ceased to interest me almost completely. The title track is another highlight because of its characteristic synths that are tuned similar to Children Of Bodom, and it is during the synth-dominated parts where my interest is aroused to a level where I'll actually be active-listening to the song, whereas through the album a tendency to passively-listen controls the listener.

The whole power metal genre is in a need of reform and fresh ideas. The same riffs and vast soundscapes are recycled from band to band today, and while some use more guitars and others more synths, next to none are comparable to the great classics by the likes of Hammerfall and Manowar. Silent Force needs to take a look at a band like Dragonforce and radically modernize and rework their sound in order to differentiate themselves from the oversaturated genre, that especially in Germany seems to be stuck in the same year, same sound year after year. Until then, I can only reward them with an average grade.

Download: Man & Machine, In From The Dark
For the fans of: Hammerfall, Iron Maiden, Sonata Arctica, Evergrey
Listen: Myspace

Release date 26.02.2007
AFM Records
Provided by Target ApS