“Avant-garde-ish death metal” is what the accompanying press release claims this album to be; not quite the description I would use but then let’s not get too wrapped up with the whole genre tagging game. Spanish act Laments Of Silence are certainly a new band to these ears, and I’m guessing they are just as unknown among you readers as well, but unknown doesn’t necessarily mean bad, does it?
I guess the answer to that is really a matter of taste, and if you go into this expecting avant-garde-ish death metal in the vein of, say, Atheist, then you will likely be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you are after uber-modern death-thrash with plenty of melody then this is for you. The likes of Soilwork and Mnemic are obvious points of reference, mainly as they have that accessible and glistening “Nuclear Blast” sound and though I’ll never claim to be an expert in technology, the fact that the mixing/mastering/recording references refer to Trivium, Scar Symmetry and Sonic Syndicate should tell you that production wise this is tip-top.
Keyboards play quite a strong role here, and are utilised rather well on ‘Sentenced’ where we have some cosmic effects splashed around both the lively thrashing verses and equally on the atmospheric verse. ‘Paper Dolls’ gets off to a synthy start and continues to saturate throughout the track. You can expect plenty of crunchy riffs which are thrown out atop a fierce backdrop of drumming and ‘Doomed’ comes at you with a blunt, bludgeoning force that works in contrast to the clean, melodic chorus. If you’re expecting a relentless, brutal assault on the eardrums then you won’t find it here, and the strongest aspect to this album is its tunefulness, with tracks like ‘Scream In The Darkness’ having a great hummable chorus melody as well as a haunting atmosphere thanks again to those keyboards. All in all, Restart Your Mind is nothing new and it perhaps borders a bit too much on the trendy for some of our readers to really dig. In places the music also comes across as a bit limp and lacks the overall power of similar bands of this ilk. That said, it’s a solid effort and worth checking out if you enjoy melodic metal.
http://www.myspace.com/lamentsofsilence
