Silent Winter
Empire of Sins

Silent Winter was founded in the nineties in Volos, Greece, they did a couple of demos before disbanding. Then the band returned to life in 2018 when they also released their first album, they also did an EP. This is their second album called Empire of Sins and perhaps there should be some expectations for it considering that the press material tells of excellent reviews for the debut album, a quick web search revealed that this one had some excellent reviews but also some indifferent ones. I have given it a few spins and it is pretty easy to conclude that there are better albums out there.

Power metal is the style of this one, they are compared with the likes of Helloween or Stratovarius and that is probably not too far off when it comes to the general style of the album. It is melodic and pretty fast paced metal with catchy choruses, many of the typical elements of the power metal style are present on this album. It feels quite familiar, the songs are like something we have heard before and I cannot really claim that they offer anything original. The production isn’t the finest of the genre, I usually like it when the bands make it slightly rougher than the usual polished consensus of the genre, but this just sounds worse.

If the sound is derivative and a weak production, the singer is mostly terrible. I don’t see many positives about this album, I kind of realised after about twenty seconds that this album wouldn’t be the best I had ever heard. Perhaps if they had taken a less travelled path and actually dared to make something more adventurous, and also made something that suited the singer better. It would be far better to just go with the better stuff from Stratovarius or Helloween if you like that kind of music, this doesn’t add anything you would really want or need. Not even the ending Belinda Carlisle cover that ends the album makes it worthwhile.

The appeal is lacking in this album, I can’t really recommend it as it doesn’t bring us anything we really want or like. The poor singer combined with the derivative style makes this a very forgettable release, and it is easy to conclude that the genre has a lot more than this to offer. There are so many better albums out there, so much great music to select from so why waste time on something as uninteresting as this one?

HHHHHHH