Review Summary: lost but not forgotten
Melodic metal is awesome, unless it isn’t. Unfortunately, most of it isn’t. Power metal and melodic death metal may be the worst genres of music ever made. Luckily we have bands like Ceremonium who write melodic metal that rules. Hailing from New York,
No Longer Silent is the band’s second and final record, released to be forgotten in a time when death metal was all but dead and everyone was listening to other metal that sucks.
No Longer Silent is equal parts death, doom, and melodic metal in a way where it isn’t altogether any of those genres. Its strength lies in the fact that it’s just really dynamic, well written, expertly composed gloomy, moody death metal. There are no plodding, boring doom sections, there are no annoying Gothernburg-esque butterfly riffs, and there are no uninteresting, mid-paced chug-death sections. From the opening notes of the first track until the very end,
No Longer Silent consists of one great riff after another, infusing strong melodies with inventive, aggressive grooves and song structures that feel fresh for the entire length of the album. The production is natural and powerful with a rhythm section performed by an expert drummer who provides consistently compelling fills and grooves with impeccable timing and craft. It’s everything you could possibly want out of a death metal album performed with skill and attention to detail that seems all but lost in the current age of DAW’s and sloppy one-man bedroom projects.
As much as it sucks that great bands like this were ignored in favor of the kind of shitty Revolver-core that was all the rage around the turn of the century, the world wide web has helped preserve music like this for obsessive internet denizens like myself to discover and fawn over on niche, hobbyist forums. While a band like this should have had a long, productive, illustrious career, what they were able to produce is good enough, and hopefully word-of-mouth can help these albums garner enough attention to be fully appreciated. Anyone who is into any kind of melodic extreme metal should grab a copy and listen to this as soon as humanly possible. If you’re a true music fan, there’s no way you won’t enjoy every second of this underrated, underheard, and underappreciated slab of groovy, moody gloom death.
