Silent Knight – Full Force

Silent Knight – Full Force
CMM
Release Date: 23/09/22
Running Time: 42:47
Review by Simon Black
8/10
Sometimes you just need a good belting bit of old-fashioned Heavy Metal, and to be honest Silent Knight well-named “Full Force” deliver this in spades. This Australian five-piece pitch themselves as Power Metal, but to be honest the NWOBHM roots are live and loud in this particular record and when it’s well crafted and not overtly derivative, then that’s a bloody good thing. So you get the rampart youthful energy, the ear-catching guitar tone and high and loud vocal approach of mid-80’s Maiden and Helloween without sounding anything like either of them, which is how influencing should truly work.
‘Blood In The Water’ kicks the door down hard and fast, and indeed hard and fast is where this album stays most of the time, with well crafted songs that have the right level of catchiness, but enough differences in the sections assembled therein to keep the interest. Many Power Metal bands get this dreadfully wrong, and amble off in different directions mid-song, creating the impression that the track had been hastily assembled from two or three tracks that didn’t quite cut it spliced together because there’s a deadline approaching. But not today, oh no… not today. Here it feels carefully crafted, designed and more importantly crafted and composed.
Now that’s quite an achievement in itself, because none of the eight songs on this open are particularly short, with most coming in over five minutes without overstaying their welcome, which at slightly under 43 minutes the album doesn’t do as a whole either. What makes them work over the melée of cookie-cutter Power acts that you can’t move through central Europe without tripping over, is that although that’s a big part of their DNA (particularly lyrically), they also pull in their love of the broader Metal church into their material, even managing to splice some Thrash structures into the relentless ‘The Last Candle Burns’ – a track that would otherwise have been the most Power sounding amongst the set.
What makes them successful here is that this feels like a fluid weaving band on every level, so although each and every instrument can be drilled down to and appreciated in isolation, the net effect is that of a continuous, fluid and living entity. That said, you cannot help but wow at Dan Brittain’s screamingly powerful vocals. He’s got a very high register and range, and although he sounds a little more forced than a Kiske or Dickinson would sound, that gives him enough of a Rock ’n’ Roll edge to make the music overall a little more edgy than is the norm for the Power genre, which is why I struggle to bracket them within that category.
With a blisteringly rich and low-end heavy production, which evokes the reverb heavy 80’s heyday whist sounding current and modern, this is a thoroughly well-crafted piece of work from a band who sound like they’ve a lot more to say. The challenge for a band based in faraway Perth, is that touring outside of their market without big label support means they remain relatively unknown in Europe and the USA despite having been around for a decade with four albums under their belt to date, which is a damn shame, as they would give the cookie cutter market a much-needed kick up the arse with some solid festival touring over here.
“Full Force” is aptly named. It’s short, it’s sharp, it unrelentingly refuses to slow things down at any point (take your ballads and naff off) and I like them. A lot…
‘Blood In The Water’ Official Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Blood In The Water
02. Full Force
03. The Last Candle Burns
04. Dark & Mysterious Times
05. Screaming Eagle
06. Into Oblivion
07. Awakening
08. Create A New World
LINE-UP:
Cameron Daw – Bass
Dan Grainger – Drums
Cam Nicholas – Lead Guitar
Stu McGill – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Dan Brittain – Lead Vocals
LINKS:
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