THE EYES OF THE SHADOW

Silent Edge is a progressive/power metal band from Holland formed around excellent keybordist Minggus Gaspersz and guitar player Emo Suripatty in late '90's. They release so far a single album in 2003 named The Eyes of the Shadow at DVS records. Their music can be describet something between progressive metal a la Symphony X or Royal Hunt with a good doze of power metal elements and neoclassical aproach a la Malmsteen.The result is fantstic, one of the best albums released in this filed, because the ideas, the musicianship, everything is top notch. Long pieces, with complex arrangements,twisted and tempo changes all the time, killer keybords elements combined in an unique manner with the rest of the instruments, makes from this album a real treasure. What I like aswell besides instrumental passages is the voice of Willem Verwoert, very strong vocalist who knew how to handle his vocal abilities to create something truly solid. His range is very powerfull who fits like gloves with the music.Every piece is a total winner, not a single weak moment here. The best tracks are Through Different Eyes, For Ancient Times, with fabulous keybords parts and killer druming and guitar elements.So aavery solid release who desearve a far wider recogniton from progressive metal lovers. Recommended for sure, I was very pleasent surprise by this almost unknown band. 4 stars without hesitation.

In my previous review of Italian Exawatt I compared them to Symphony X but that was just slightly. Listening at first two (especially second) tracks of this debut from Dutch Silent Edge I can only say that the similarity is even more evident. Again the vocals are totally different from Russell Allan but contrary to Exawatt's lead vocalist Dutch singer Willem Verwoert is a competent vocalist.

It seems Symphony X is a large source of inspiration to many recent prog metal bands. Does this mean Silent Edge is just another clone ? No, I wouldn't go that far. Third track Wasted Lands for instance goes into different territory though SX yet shines through a bit at times. First three tracks are pretty good warm ups for the rest of the album which seems to get better as it progresses. The songs are a nice mix of accessible metal and obvious progressive metal.

So not really anything new under the sun with Silent Edge but still I tend to go with Bogdan's rating (4 stars) simply because it's a quality album all the way without weak fillers. Highlight is the brilliant song "For Ancient Times" which is even much better than the (very good) rest. So 4 stars it will be but recommended for lovers of great (prog) metal more than lovers of ultimate originality.