Review Summary: Definitely a "sleeper" pick for black metal in 2011.
Yellow Eyes is a band that really came out of left field. Until not too long ago, I'd never even heard the name of this band. Then one day Spirit drops me a message in my shoutbox and the rest is history. Their 2011 release,
Silence Threads the Evening's Cloth, is an album that mixes a lot of different black metal styles. The main style that this album portrays is the more atmospheric side of the black metal spectrum. You can't pigeonhole it just to that though because there's plenty of other things going on as well. Other styles such as doom, shoegaze, and folk are also added into the mix. Throw all those different elements together and you have yourself a damn good album that probably no more than a few people have even heard of.
This isn't an album that is going to require you to have a really great attention span to really enjoy, despite all the mixtures of different kinds of music. This album is pretty damn easy to digest right away since it only clocks in at a little over a half hour. Another thing is, despite it being a black metal album, the music is really mellow and very chill for the most part. A lot of the riffs ease in and out and almost put you at peace with the melodic tremolo picking that's going on a lot of the time. At other times though you'll have menacing black metal equipped with blast beats and ferocious riffs. Then of course there's times when everything gets slowed down and it gets mellow again with almost a mixture of doom-like and shoegazey parts intertwining with each other. The way the styles are mixed is just a pleasure to the ear. Never gets too harsh and never gets too mellow at any one point. It's pretty evenly matched throughout the duration of the album. There are also a few folk interludes with acoustic guitars and other things of that nature. There's even times when you can hear what sounds like crickets chirping in the background. This really sets the folk-like nature-esque atmosphere of the album.
With all this other stuff going on, one could almost forget all about the vocal aspect of the album. To be quite honest, they really don't even need to be here. It wouldn't have any negative bearing on the album if they were just completely absent and it wouldn't take away from the album in the least. With that being said, the vocals are still very well done for the most part. While they are pretty low in the mix and buried beneath the sound of the drums and the guitars, you can still make them out. They're a pretty high-pitched shriek and they pretty much stay that way the entire time. No clean vocals or death growls to be found anywhere throughout this album. Even with the lack of variation, they're still executed pretty well and don't detract from the quality in any way.
When it comes to this album, it should be able to be enjoyed by quite a wide selection of people. Fans of black metal, doom metal, and shoegaze should all find something to like here since all of the styles are pretty well mixed throughout. While this is a black metal band and that is clearly the dominant style of music here, that's not to say that's all it is. Again, it would be unfair to pigeonhole it into just one genre because it's just a lot more than that. I highly recommend this to metal fans in general. Who knows? You may find one of your favorite metal albums of the year in
Silence Threads the Evening's Cloth.
