Silent Planet “Superbloom”
Silent Planet have taken a literal trek through the making of fifth album Superbloom that is in part horrific and part destiny. As the album drops on the one year anniversary of the bands van crash and ensuing wreckage, including vocalist Garrett Russell’s fractured back, the album takes its power from surviving death and rises like a phoenix from the ashes.
Russell admits that the band took the opportunity of the crash to look within themselves and push the boundaries of their own musical constraints and the result is Superbloom, a twelve track tale of unexpected beauty and colour within a metalcore world.
Combining those traditional metalcore elements of blast beats, huge breakdowns and choruses to hook you in isn’t where the band limit themselves. The push past that.
Ambient electronic beats in Offworlder and Collider are supplemented by soft vocals and crushing riffs, with ‘Collider’ in particular weaving a guitar storyline throughout that emotionally pulls you in.
Dreamwalker takes you a sonic journey of dreams as the music juxtaposes between angelic vocals and a crushing foot tapping rhythm with an instantly catchy chorus. This is quite a ride.
Antimatter has a crunching industrial vibe that gives off dark nightclub room interposed with strobe lighting visuals of consciousness, and your fears, slipping away.
The band really delve into the world of prog metal with their usual metalcore sound and this shows in Anunnaki with Russell’s vocal delivery combining with the music to make a jarring nightmare of a track the crushes bard.
After being blown away with that, a more ethereal The Overgrowth takes the pace down but not the intensity.
As the album takes its final bow we get gifted Nexus which sits as an almost normal metalcore beauty of screams, beats, cranking riffs and volume increaser before the albums title track closes out. An epic journey that softy builds throughout. The track itself, like a Superbloom, stands out from the rest of the album not just in its length, its delivery and harmonies behind it but also the subtly in its softness coexisting with the darkness the pours throughout.
Sometimes it takes something tragic to push you out of your comfort zone. Others freeze or run away from it however Silent Planet took it as a chance to reinvent yet stay true to who they are. To elevate.
Superbloom is a supreme collection of musical and lyrical vulnerability matched with extreme and expert delivery. A journey of beauty through harshness, it’s a repeat play, turn the volume up loud and blast those speakers out of an album.
Album Review By Iain McCallum
