Found on the Sun

"Found On The Sun" is a rather curious beast, being effectively a reissue of an earlier "Structures" EP with quite a few extra tracks, rather than a proper full-length debut album. Therefore, this review will focus on each element of the release separately, as the tracks showcase the band's evolution from "Kozmos" EP to this present day.

The opener "Apollocide" is the new song, and the first to feature new guitarist Dan Lynn, who also cowrote it and engineered the recording. If this is just a hint of things to come, then Silencer is truly going to blow the listeners away with their next release, as the track displays all the elements that made Silencer's music excellent in first place, but with a heavier, tighter sound. And is it a blastbeat that I hear? Here is the band that can be as heavy and furious as any death/thrash hybrid making waves these days, but can still use melody, cleaner vocals (as opposed to death/black metal rasp of many of their peers), and traditional metal influences to deliver the music that is modern-sounding, traditionally-minded, and completely fresh.

"Structures" material is excellent thrash metal with just some shades of power metal thrown in, smart use of melody and hooks, and a plenty of aggression. The heavier tracks such as "Bruising Feast" or the non-stop thrash frenzy of "Megalith" deliver the goods along with more traditional metal-based "This Mythic Image", which slows down the tempo, allowing bass guitar to take prominence during the song's slower section.

The songs from an earlier EP "Kozmos" (which is in fact the entire EP minus the opener "Mourning Star") display the side of the band that has more in common with power metal, albeit of American, not European variety - the most commonly mentioned soundalike would be "Persistense of Time"-era Anthrax, although Silencer just manages to add their own touch to the songs enough to avoid the clone tag. Both "Kozmos" and "Industrial Command" are intensive, heavy tracks, while "Missing Hope" builds up from its clean guitar passages and bluesy intro to a powerful, emotional track with plenty of speed and heaviness to throw around.

The live tracks sandwiched in between the material from two EPs show the band's evolution from a promising power/thrash act that is just developing its own identity to what is quickly becoming America's premier thrash metal powerhouse. "Descending The Ziggurrat" is an instrumental that relies more on inventive riffing and intelligent use of melody in conjunction with heavy thrash rhythms than it does on virtuoso playing, however, time and time again the members of Silencer display their playing abilities as being nothing short of excellent. "Error Of Your Ways" is probably the weakest track on the CD, songwriting-wise, as it is a more simplistic power/thrash number, a fun live track, but not necessarily as good as the rest of the album. Still, it is a decent enough marriage of more melodic elements of "Kozmos" and hints at the heavier riffing of "Structures", and is still quite enjoyable.

Since "Found On The Sun" is probably the Silencer release most easily available throughout the world, it is most likely the first Silencer album for most of the listeners who had not followed the band's career from the beginning, and as such, it is a great introduction, and an excellent teaser for what is to come. Even for those who have the two Silencer EPs released independently, the new song and the live tracks, previously only available on the (very) limited edition split with Serberus, make "Found On The Sun" a worthwhile purchase.