My Silent Wake: A Garland of Tears
As the seasons change here in Colorado, so do the musical styles in the Paravellum "Album of the Month" feature. For April we have chosen to review an Album from the British Doomdeath band My Silent Wake.
Doomdeath is heavy metal sub-genre that originated in England in the early 1990's with My Dying Bride, Anathema, and Paradise Lost being the originators of the sound. Doomdeath combines the slow heavy sounds of Doom metal with the vocal style of Death Metal (rough growling). This adds weight to the darker themes inherent to the Doom Metal genre.
England is no stranger to the Heavy Metal genre with plenty of hard rock bands blazing the way for Black Sabbath who was arguably the first Heavy Metal band and most certainly the first Doom Metal band. Since the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) in the 1980's, England has sent us various musical movements. These include punk, new wave, techno, electronic, big beat, break beat, and Brit pop. If I could sum up the British music scene over the last 20 years in one word it would be "pretentious." I don't know how many times each new big band is compared favorably to the Beatles, or how mediocre bands sit on the shoulders of the outstanding British bands (Pink Floyd, U2, Led Zeppelin, etc...) The best examples of this are the best selling rock/alt rock bands such as Oasis and Coldplay. With legions of devoted fans, these bands continue to turn out music more characterized by production than passion, with little to no meaning in their songs (unless whiny and political counts as meaning). As New York Times music critic Jon Pareles says of Coldplay "the lyrics make me wish I didn't understand English... I hear a passive-aggressive blowhard, immoderately proud as he flaunts humility." Luckily there are still musicians in England with something genuine to say and who say it in an interesting and creative way. My Silent Wake is one of those bands.
My Silent Wake's latest album "A Garland of Tears" is a dark and wonderful piece of art. While the style of the band is still decidedly Doomdeath, there are other elements in the album such as progressive tinges, celtic/folk influences, and even some medieval sounds. The first thing that a person notes about this album is that there are only 7 tracks. This is not an E.P, most of the tracks on this album clock in at over 8 minutes. The time allotted to the tracks allows them to set moods within each track and really go some wonderful places. The first thing that I noticed about the album were the thoughts (written by Ian Arkley), on the c.d. insert, opposite the disc as you first open the C.D. case. His words of what was to come really excited me and made me want to listen to the music.
It concerns me when there is much in the media about teenage suicides, these lives wasted, never to be restored. So much potential lost. The impact is far reaching and destroys the lives of families and close friends as well as the victims. I hope that our songs can be of a comfort to those who are at their lowest. Many of them are written from experiences and feelings that are felt whilst in our darkest moments, and are not in any way contrived or created to invoke a depressing vide... I just hope that they can be a comfort to those who are feeling a similar way as the lyrics of others have been to me. I hope it can be like a friend who understands what we are feeling"... -Ian Arkley
The album kicks off with a classic Doomdeath track entitled "Tunnels." This track chuggs along slowly with a heavy riff before clean vocals enter into the mix. Clean vocals prevail in this track with the Death vocals highlighting a refrain. A sharp contrast that really works well!
The first two tracks lead into a musical interlude by Kate Hamilton the, classical influence within My Silent Wake. Kate's track "Pendulum" has touches of Celtic, Folk, and Medieval sounds. This "soft" composition, at first, hit me as bizzare. After a few listens this track slowly became the eye of the hurricane. With the emotional intensity of the first two tracks, I slowly recognized the importance of this track as sort of a timeout within the record.
After "Pendulum you are hit with two more heavy tracks including "By My Own Hand" which puts you in the mind of someone who is close to ending their life but ends up walking away from it. This is followed by "Fall of the Flightless," which is a song of disillusionment and questioning.
Following those two tracks is another "interlude," this time an acoustic track written by Ian Arkley. "Fallen Leaves," to me, speaks of growing older and really pondering the questions "what did I do with my life?" and "will I be remebered?"
The last and final track "Wilderness of Thorns" is my favorite track on the album. A very classic slow riff with a minor tonality chuggs along with an organ joining in adding some very complimentary touches. The introduction is very doom/gothic influenced and you would expect something like that to play in a Transylvanian castle. The song is about abandonment and lonliness and a careful study of the lyrics might surprise the listener with clues to the inspiration for the song.
"A Garland of Tears" is an outstanding work in the Doomdeath tradition. With album artwork by "Rex Zachary" this album is a complete metal package and something that the members of My Silent Wake can be proud of. This album is a Paravellum Recommendation with 3.75 stars out of 5.