SILENT MEMORIAL

Silent Memorial operate withing the same brand of progressive metal as Dream Theater does, and on "Retrospective" you will find a lot of the elements that characterize that style, such as odd time signatures, keyboard and guitar acrobatics, complex song structures and imports from various different rock genres. There is also something about this release that reminds me of Fates Warning from their 90s period (I think that's probably the vocal style of the singer).

I do not think that Silent Memorial are just a bunch of DT clones, although the influences are very obvious. I think that Silent Memorial certainly stand out from the mass of Dream Theater follower bands in that Silent Memorial also experiment considerably with groove, and then there are less ballads on this album than on your typical Dream Theater and Dream Theater inspired albums.

I recommend this album to fans of the type of progressive metal that Dream Theater pioneered and have been spearheading ever since their firs release. Oh, I also recommend this to James Bond fans - there's a nice surprise for such fans in the title track.

(review originally posted in Danish on heavymetal.dk and in English on metalmusicarchives.com and progfreak.com)

"Cosmic Handball" is very inspired by Dream Theater, it seems, and it offers pretty much run-of-the-mill progressive metal with dominant keyboards, odd time signatures, jazzy and shreddy guitar soloes and other guitar acrobatics, complex song structures, unexpected tempo changes, and very melodic vocals. The music is so complex and heterogeneous that one easily loses oneself in it.

This sounds pretty typical and unoriginal, doesn't it? Maybe, but Silent Memorial are so good at doing what they do, and they're fantastic musicians, the it becomes totally irrelevant whether or not their music is original or groundbreaking.

My favorite track is "I: Carpet Driver", which is full of so many twists and turns that it reaches the level of masterpieces like "At Fates Hands" by Fates Warning and "Erotomania" and "Stream of Consciousness" by Dream Theater. In contrast, the ballad "Lovely Galaxy" is some of the worst sappy music I've ever heard; it really sounds like a failed attempt at making a Queen-like epic ballad.

But all in all, a fine progressive metal album featuring some very skilled musicians. Recommended to fans of Dream Theater and progressive metal in general.

(review originally posted in Danish on heavymetal.dk, and in English on metalmusicarchives.com and progfreak.com)

In the pack of European progressive metal, Silent Memorial's "Retrospective" may be just that, it cetainly takes cues from those that went before, but no where near as blatantly as most of the others. It seems overlooked, but certainly shouldn't be.

SM seem a little more mature and more skilled than many of their counterparts. There's standard references to all the usual bands, but they are more like a cranked up flashy version of Evergrey than the Dream Theater clones like Pagan's Mind, or the Pagan's Mind clones like Circus Maximus, etc, etc.

SM manage to avoid the cringe worthy nature of some of the Eurometal sound. Their sound is mature and melodic, with a busy crunchy guitar sound and keyboards that play just enough of a role.

There are plenty of mind boggling technical interludes and some excellent guitar solos. The guitars are very crunchy but flow well, drumming is excellent as are all other performances. The vocal are provided by Cloudscape vocalist, and whilst his band may be a bit more popular (see Eurometal), this music really suits his Coverdale like mid ranged delivery.

I found it hard to find time to listen to this, it's been one that when I had my first listen knew it was classy and could probably wait till I was ready for it. In the meantime I've tried out plenty of other Euro power prog acts and the only ones that are up there with SM would be Anubis Gate, Beyond Twilight, Evergrey, Guilt Machine and Wolverine - though perhaps these are all a bit too different from each other.

In summary, I don't think you can do much better than this in the standard progressive metal arena and as such it is a worthy addition.

Silent Memorial is relativly a new name in progressive metal scene with only two albums, this one is the newest from they catalogue named Retrospective released in may 2009. I was curious to listent to this band because I've always like lenghty pieces, specially when is about prog music - because here we have a 22 min prog metal highlight. So , I've give it a try, hmmm not very plsently surprise overall, same old formula, Dream Theater (Awake era) elements combined, of course in good measure with the rest of the influences, but not something excellent, really. If wasn't the title track , a nearly 25 min of hiugh class progressive metal piece, where they simply shine at each intrument, it was an almost boring album in the end. But as I said the lenghty piece save my day and save them aswell for reaching the DT clone status. The rest of the pieces are not bad, like the opening track , who is catchy , nice key passages, but nothing really intristing, I know this aproach of prog metal since 1992 - simlar to Awake of DT fame. They are considered one of the top bands from Switzerlant nowa days, and with a little help they will enter in premier league of Europes progressive metal bands. Something that worth mentioning is with this albums they have a diffrent voice, no other than MIke Andersson from Cloudscape fame. Well, while is a good voice I'm not really impressed about his voice, it's ok, good but nothing special, and another thing I prefer him in Cloudscape better as a singer, ther has much space and is better. The musicianship is ok, on the longest piece is even excellent but they don't shine overall. So my conclusion is that this album is a good one for sure, pleasent most of the time, but not great, if there wasn't that great title track it would be a fans only album, but because that track plus some good moments on the rst I will give 3 stars. Not recommended but worth investigated, but only for prog metal listners only.