Artist: Silent Fall
Title: Otherwise
Type: Album
Label: Pitch Black Records

French band Silent Fall used to be called Winterland. I saw them about three years ago giving a spirited live performance. Although quoting Angra, In Flames and Mercenary as their influences, their line of melody and occasional bombast barely borders on Metal. The production of “Otherwise” is stronger than Winterland’s “The Snow Begins to Fall” but it’s still essentially light. The opening track “Who is the Fool?” hints at darkness but it’s short-lived. The overriding feel is of summer and blue skies as we hear the jolly pitter-patter of Power Metal music. The riff is along the lines of In Flames playing pop. A feature which I had to get used to was that of the vocalist singing with the flourish of a Eurovision entry, you know, the sort from a pop/metal band which comes about 15th out of 24 through no fault of their own. We hear yet more happy melodies on “Kill for Life”. On the somewhat aimless “Haunted Sights”, the vocalist started to remind me of Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley on “Gold”, except that this one can’t hold a note and is a bit flat. Never mind haunted sights, the Tony Hadley comparison haunted me throughout and it was strange to hear this kind of voice accompanying “I Wish”, which is basically a Power Metal romp. There’s a lot of that on here. Leaving aside the vocals, the band do pull it off on “Forever and Ever”, which features a bombastic and Finnish-style Power Metal riff with keyboard melodies. It’s not deep, but it’s fast and fun. “World of Secrets” and the bonus track “Heroes” are similarly upbeat but like much of the rest of the album, it’s rambling and uninspired. “Tears of Fate” has a good beat but there’s no power in terms of production or vocal output. There are two ballads. The first, “One Cold Winter Night” has a nice Spanish-style acoustic guitar section but otherwise is an utterly dismal piece of EuroPop. The other, “This Could Have Been”, again has a decent acoustic line but instead of one vocalist, there’s a female with an equally flat voice. Even when the band try something more atmospheric, it doesn’t really work. “On Top of the World” has dark beginnings before returning to the customary melodic ramblings. There is a sinister section and growls, but they’re not effective. The sound is never big on this album and that really is a necessity with Power Metal. As for “Play with Fire”, if the incongruous and uninteresting lyrical line isn’t enough, the wimpish growling of the chorus line “play with fire” and the almost unrecognisable whimper of the fire alarm are simply ineffective and almost laughable. More attention to detail is needed. The album ends with another poorly growled melody on the “Black” version of “Who is the Fool?” Actually there’s a nice dark undercurrent and there are some good touches but it’s generally aimless, and worse than I remember it being when I heard it 12 tracks earlier. Maybe I’d been reduced to numbness and indifference. It’s no longer a catchy song, and seems to miss the point, whatever the point was.

If Euro-melody is your thing, here it is. On this showing, it’s not mine. In spite of its sugary coating, “Otherwise” is flawed in too many places and is altogether a bit drab really.

http://www.myspace.com/silentfall
http://www.pitchblackrecords.com