Shards of Silver Fade

...and what a beautiful darkness this album brings. Finally, after releasing two demos and a full-length all of which being nearly perfect, Midnight Odyssey has succeeded in capturing the perfect atmosphere and some of the most beautiful music that have ever crossed my ears. Dis Pater is no stranger to creating music on such a high caliber, and with "Shards of Silver Fade", the story is pretty much the same as the last full-length "Funerals from the Astral Sphere", released in 2011. Released as a double album, this is a massive collection of music. Only instead of 16 songs, there are only 8. Regardless, this album is longer than "Funerals from the Astral Sphere", and overall, far more epic and massive.

As previously mentioned, this album is yet another double CD release. Each disc contains over an hour of music, making for a total runtime of over 142 minutes. These songs range from almost 14 minutes to almost 22 minutes. If "Funerals from the Astral Sphere" was hard to digest for some listeners because of its length, this album might be the ultimate challenge. However, there is so much going on and the song writing is so amazing and intricate despite not being all that complex. This album works in the similar way of the previous releases in terms of the instrumentation. The guitars and keyboards still intertwine with each other and compliment one another quite nicely, but the keyboards are even more of a focus on this album than in the past. They play a much bigger role here. "From a Frozen Wasteland", the nearly 22 minute opener to the album, relies heavily on synths. In fact, that is what makes most of the album what it is. The guitars don't kick in until late in the track and they are still pushed slightly in the background to make more room for the synths. Although this may be a turn off for a lot of listeners, I embrace this with open arms. There are a lot of bands that do this in similar fashion, for example Summoning and "Goat Horns" era Nokturnal Mortum. "Asleep in the Fire" is especially ambient. Out of all the tracks, this is probably the most ambient song, although obviously, every single one of these tracks rely on ambience. The keyboard melodies in "Starlight Oblivion" immediately captivated me the first time I heard it, before the album was even released. I knew then and there that this album would be special, and a pinnacle release of Midnight Odyssey's career.

This is very similar to the production Dis Pater used on the last Midnight Odyssey album. The guitars are still fuzzy enough to create an effective atmosphere, but you can clearly hear what's going on in the riffs despite the keyboards being the main focus. The vocals are quite varied, and truly do not differentiate themselves with the past releases. There is still epic clean singing, almost sounding operatic, and there is still plenty of room for the harsh shrieks that are a staple in black metal. It is in these vocals, along with the structure of the guitar riffs and some of the drumming, that lie the key influences of black metal. The drums Dis Pater uses are still artificial and are produced using a drum machine. They have the same overall sound that was heard on the last full-length, but they are heard easier within the mix, and the double bass works very well and can be heard throughout most of these songs. There are even some blastbeats to be heard throughout the album. Take "From a Frozen Wasteland" for example. Towards the end of the song, there is a fairly fast black metal blastbeat. Midnight Odyssey has used blasts before, but they seem to be more common within this album. It helps to add more variation to this massive release.

The lyrical themes are solidified within the normal ideas used by this band. Topics of death, desolation, space, and nature make up the majority of the lyrics. Mythology also seems to be a theme here, with the track "Son of Phoebus". The variation in the lyricism really adds an interesting element to the atmosphere. Just gazing at the album artwork while listening to these lyrics really adds another dynamic to the music.

If you enjoyed the last Midnight Odyssey full-length, this is a logical follow up as well as a much better release. Hopefully it will be easier to digest than the last album, as it adds a lot more variation and the music seems to transition from one idea to the next much more smoothly. It's still simplistic, yet thanks to the magnificently huge sounding production and ever so perfect atmosphere, it may be less of a tedious listen. It may be about two and a half hours in length but when you listen to the album all the way through while sitting outside at night gazing at the stars, or while reading a good book, the time will fly by. I had an issue making it past "From a Frozen Wasteland" because that song itself is just so perfect but once I finally did, it was completely worth it. I already await to see what Dis Pater will put out in the future.