Review Summary: Silent civilian’s debut album Rebirth of the temple proves to be very impressive, especially coming from spineshank… where the singer used to be.
First time I heard silent civilian was on headbangers ball the show. they were the only band featured on that episode that, their video made me want to check them out. so I got their CD about 3 days later and I was impressedwith the musical talent they they possess. my only dislike is that their songs get repetitive vocal wise. but There are a few stand alone songs like funeral, rebirth of the temple, falling down, divided.
All and all a very good debut album the few stand alone songs I picked are the ones with different and very good sounding riffs and a sort of different vocal sound or style. Like funeral its number 2 on the album and it is probably my favorite song by far. It starts out with a pretty generic riff but yet still very good. It has a very metal feel to it. There is a nice chanting session in there and very sweet riff right before the verse that ends in a couple nicely placed pinch harmonics. The song it self is a good piece of work all together it kind o drags on a little bit to get to the chorus but when it hits the clean vocals are very good and stick out to me above all of the rest. It has some ok lyricism; I have definitely heard better but hey I am not complaining. I really like the line “this will be the funeral for who I once was.” And the chorus lyrics stick out a lot as well. It has a very good solo in it but it also introducing to you the fact that hey were a new metal band that used an over abundance of pinch harmonics. I mean there is just too many, Reminds me of black label society live to tell you the truth, except without all of the beer.
Rebirth of the temple is the single from there self titled debut and this obviously was the song that I heard that lonely Saturday night. Starts out with a very upbeat riff but is still sweet still an over abundance of pinch harmonics. There is a solo right after the intro riff which is nice because well it is a good solo and there’s not too many songs that have an intro solo and then another section of solos later in the song. Its is kind of a simple structured song but is good nonetheless the vocals get more aggressive after the solo section which stood out to me at least. A couple lyrics that stood out to me were “put on your gloves and fight society.” And ok that was really the only one that I could think of right now but is good nonetheless.
The next track I thought as different and that’s why I am choosing to talk about it. The track is called Divided. Its number 5 on the album and this one starts out with an extremely heavy intro I thought at least and there is a nice little drum fill and then the verse. The verse is a little different because it is like constant vocals if they weren’t in the same voice I would assume that it was two people. But then it kind of slows up a bit and there is some clean vocals. It’s the pre chorus but it makes you think that it is the chorus for a second but the chorus is powerful and you know it when it comes. It comes right out to you saying. “In the name of fascism you stand and oppose!” which stands out a lot to me because that is a pretty solid line. There are also some backing vocals that chant “hey! hey!” For the rest of the song it kind of gets to the point that I discussed earlier that is like well this sounds like everything else that silent civilian does. There I a pretty solid solo later in the song. Besides the fact that it sounds a lot like everything else it still stands out to me because of the lyrics and how aggressive the entire song is.
The next song that stood out to me is falling down. At first glance I was like sweet an “Emo” song but I was overly wrong. It starts out with a catchy but sluggish guitar riff and an unusual “AHHHH F***!” to start out the song caught me by surprise. This song has probably the fastest verse I have heard on the album. And once again I was very fond of the lyrics very in your face song with the presentation of the vocals and the lyrics. The song never stops laying out aggressiveness to you and there are some stand out lines like “justice will rise bodies will fall DOWN! DOWN! Watch them fall down!” at first listen if I didn’t know any better I would think that it was about the punisher or something along those lines. The part of this song that stood out to me the most was the line where he says “ ten in the clip now, with one in the whole, chanting and screaming and justice for all, pulling back his hammer bodies now fall…DOWN!”
The reason I only chose to review a few songs instead of a track by track by track or every song was because I chose the ones that I thought showed the most talent the most aggression or the best lyrics. I only did this so that hopefully my justifications about these few songs would give you an idea if you want to check them out or not. My opinion to you would be to check them out if you think that all the songs sound the same then only listen to a few of them like me but the ones you listen to will for sure be good. Overall it is a good album nonetheless a debut album. Great solos, great guitars in general, pretty good drumming its not the best but it is good. The bass is pretty dulled out through most of the album so therefore there isn’t much to say about it besides I bet if you could here it, it would be pretty solid. Thanks for reading please leave some comments/ and or constructive criticism.
