Silentium is a celebrated gothic metal/symphonic metal Finnish band. The band has a massive discography since its founding in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, the band was absent for a long time till early this when Silentium decided to come back to music and joy once more. Through this article, Rock Era Magazine is reviewing the band’s recent release “Motiva.”
Personally, Silentium is one of my favorite bands, I have a lot of memories with the band’s music especially “Altum” and “Amortean”, so the band’s absence saddened me a lot, but I am now so glad to review “Motiva” especially on a day carries a special date “10/10/2020”. When I listened to the new album, I found out new musical tendencies appeared within Silentium’s music. I mean, the band carries a distinct sound which is a combination of symphonic music and gothic elements. But, in “Motiva,” there is a progressive mood in some tracks, slight death metal techniques, and more power metal presence.
I can’t say the album carries any signs of Silentium’s long absence, the mood of the album reflects the same musical line the band’s approached in “Seducia” and “Amortean” but in more professional and mature performance. Starting with “Truth” (my favorite track”, the music starts in fading in technique just to give you a fast warming up. The track performance is so vivid and active as the band shouts and saying “Silentium is back”. Epic symphonic lines mixed with dynamic tunes of guitars and the beautiful vocals of Riina. Moving to “Unchained”, I like the position of “Unchained” in the album as if Silentium reminds you of the dark side of Silentium. While listening to “Seducia” and “Amortean”; you can distinguish the presence of dark, depressive, and angry tracks; this is the angry Silentium.
The third track of the album is “Vow” when I listened to the intro of “Vow”, I remembered, “My Broken Angel” and “Unbroken;” emotional intro with the outstanding presence of keys and sorrowful guitar melodies. “Safer/Easier” mood is not also far away from “Vow”, but it could be slower or calmer only in the beginning as it carries also a high part, this part caught my feelings; it beautifully reflected the pain of a broken woman, lamenting loneliness, and bleeding!
If you listened to Silentium before, you may recognize that the bands introduced some long-progressive tracks, and those tracks are somehow carrying another shape of Silentium music as the band combines other techniques like death, growling vocals, power metal, horrifying sounds. You can experience that once more in “Vortex” and “Tide”. “Tide” is not the following track after “Vortex” but I combined them here because they have the same approach.
The same goes for “Circle” and “Friend”, both tracks are amusing instrumental tracks, I liked the idea of including instrumental tracks with vocalization by Riina, it is obvious that the band is really thirsty for revealing their musical talents.
In general, Silentium’s return album “Motiva” is a beautiful piece of music. There is clear evidence of maturity and improvement in the process of musical composition and performance. The album is full of catchy guitar tunes, emotional key sounds, breathtaking symphonic riffs, and well-made vocal lines. I am impressed, it is beautiful to not feel that the band is far away from music and stage. The final rate is 9/10.
