Silent Descent – Mind Games

Having carved itself a niche as the best trance-metal band on the scene today Silent Descent can be forgiven for indulging an emblematically operatic style. Fans of 2008’s Duplicity will feel right at home, even if they’d been hoping for perhaps a step outside the group’s comfort zone. A revolutionary departure it is not, but it succeeds on its own terms: Silent Descent’s Mind Games is in many ways the fulfillment of a genre, an expansive blend of genres that make for perfect partners.

The stirring deathstep “Overture” at the beginning of the album lays out the style of the remaining tracks. Landing with steady, driving beats each track uses a trance structure to visit familiar metal motifs. This simple dichotomy doesn’t quite cut it, but there’s too much going on in this work to try to cover it all: Flashes of pop, death metal, dubstep and rock make appearances, mostly on the early tracks before Mind Games settles into its rhythm.

Much of Mind Games, minus the intermittent surfacing of strong backing vocals was presaged by 2008’s Duplicity and as such this album can in some places be accused of merely rehashing an old formula. Deviations from that formula are ambitious plunges into uncharted territory, with tracks “On That Trip” and “Psychotic Euphoric” brilliantly assembling rock, trance and death metal into ballads greater than the sum of their parts, though the most indulgent “Call Me When You Get There” is one degree too hokey in its synth choices. The formula plays out in more straightforward fashion elsewhere, with early tracks “Bricks” and “Coke Stars” passing largely unnoticed.

“Devoid’s” relentlessly overwrought narration is carefully metered by the well-conceived and fully developed trance progression undergirding much of the album and, with its simultaneously silly and spooky use of the sound of choking is the album’s most challenging track. Contrary to the common expectations of the metal genre Silent Descent works much more in major chords and steady beats, an alchemical blend of the soul of metal and the science of trance.

Unlike their first album, where lead vocalist Tom Watling’s voice suffered for lack of support (I would describe “Bleed in Trust” as an extended belch) production efforts have produced an inarguably superior layering that sustain an album mere seconds away from earning overlong status. The lyrics are more or less par for the course, and the album lags on tracks like “Wipe Your Chin And Walk Away” when the instrumentation steps back for their benefit.

Few bands have treaded this particular ground, but many genre-blenders have run into the problem of where to go next. Now that Silent Descent has produced two works thoroughly in this vein one wonders what will prevent a predictable third album of the type. By incorporating so many styles to a minor degree throughout the album they have given themselves plenty of places to go, though I suspect their work to date is going to stay in demand for awhile yet.