BAD SIDE MEMORIES

Originating from the city of Helmond in the Netherlands, Casual Silence were formed in 1993 with Ernst le cocq and Mark van Dijk on guitars, Igor Koopmans on drums, Eric Smits on bass, David Natali on keyboards and Rob Laarhoven as the main man behind the microphone.They debuted in 1997 with the album ''Bad side memories'', recorded at Soundwave Studios in Gemert and delivered as an independent release.

At this early point of their career Casual Silence were not only trying to find their own identity, but also struggled to perform a specific music style.Apparently following the trends of the Prog Metal rising wave and the comeback of Progressive Rock, their debut is somewhat split between Heavy Rock tunes in the style of AMON RA and TILES and a fiery, attacking Prog Metal along the lines of early FATES WARNING or German bands like JESTER'S MARCH and SECRECY, without though having the extreme technical delivery of any of these bands.Their sound can be either melodic with warm vocals and more doentempo guitar moves or very heavy and sharp with angular riffs and high-pitched vocals, but all tracks follow a standard song structure without any particular surprises or variations.To complete the picture, the band threw in a couple of AOR-sounding ballads in the album with amateur lyrics but also nice guitar parts.The presence of Natali makes no difference to the sound, as there is little contribution on keyboards, and the overall sound is led by the two guitarists and their generally propulsive riffs and solos.

The album is now long out of print, but the average Prog fan shouldn't get bother of purchasing it.''Bad side memories'' shows Casual Silence during their first steps with a pretty mediocre sound and an undefined style.Recommended only to fans of hard guitar-based Rock music...2.5 stars.