By: James Southworth
Rating: 5/5 Stars
The English major in me loves everything to do with Silent Planet lyrically. This Christian metalcore band's lead singer Garrett Russell is nothing short of an incredibly talented poet. If he were to write a novel, I would not hesitate to go out and buy it and read it. Even though I haven't always been the hugest fan of this band musically (their brand of metalcore has always been a little too heavy on the screamed vocals side for me), I still have always had a huge respect for them. Their talent is obvious in every department. They have pushed themselves on every album to make something that stands out in a scene that can become pretty diluted, and I always like checking out their albums. I certainly wasn't expecting what I got out of the band's newest release "When The End Began". This album perfects the sound that the band is known for while adding in a healthy dose of experimentation and a good amount of clean vocals as well. The band so expertly puts together all the musical elements, and for me, this is the best written album I've heard all year.
What I think I've always liked best about Silent Planet is their brutal honesty as Christians. The band are not afraid to speak their mind on issues they care about. For example, in their debut album, the song "Native Blood" talked about the oppression of Native Americans, and "XX" discussed the dark world of the sex slave industry. This new album is no different, as the band tackles issues that could elicit negative reactions from their audience. The album begins on a somber note with "Thus Spoke", which seems to be a metaphorical representation of the world coming into existence. The listener gets an early indicator of the beautifully written lyrics and the intricate instrumentation present throughout this whole release. I will try my best to refrain from writing lyrical moments from every song, but man, there are SO many standout moments. I'm sure old fans and newcomers alike will enjoy "The New Eternity", which feels like classic Silent Planet in every sense of the word. This song feels sort of like the thesis statement for the album as a whole. Garrett expresses his sorrow at how so many catastrophic events such as World War II have paved the way our world looks today. Our desire to be better than others and to innovate is far more important than connecting. Because of that, it feels like our "eternity" is meant to always be a dark and hateful place. Garrett's screams are absolutely piercing throughout this song, bleeding with sincere emotion, as he shifts between genuine anger and sadness. Like with most SP songs, this one includes footnotes of all the various references. I like that Watts explicitly uses outside media sources for pretty much all of the songs here to flesh them out further. I particularly liked the usage of "Hamlet" in this track, as it is incorporated very cleverly. The album then transitions smoothly into the bone shattering intensity that is "Northern Fires (Guernica)". Part of this song's title is obviously inspired by the Pablo Picasso painting of the same name. Similarly to that art piece, this song is chaotic, with a lot going on. There is so much musical intricacy in this track. It's hard to describe all that is going on. This song expresses anger about war in a very powerful way through its lyrics: "Who fuels the fascist? A classist/Inculcating the masses in passes/Under the contrived countenance of contrition/The victor writes the story, more often burns the manuscript/Set fire to a pyre cremate the crimes that they commit". Lyrics like that send cold chills up my spine, especially as Russell spits them out with conviction.
"Afterdusk" continues the concepts surrounding "Northern Fires", and expands upon them. Instead of talking specifically about war, this one discusses our impulses to violence. The slamming guitar riffs and pounding drums that introduce us to this song take us right in to a desolate landscape. This song feels violent, which is a really impressive accomplishment on the band's part. I have to commend Russell's clean vocal performance on this track. I like his singing on every track here, but this is the first time in the album where they shine in a very unique way especially in the subtly quiet bridge. This song ends off on a note that may leave you feeling hopeless, and that is exactly what the lyrics are meant to convey: "I followed the harm to the site of infection/The exit wounds where we made our home/We were gorged with the earth and drunk off the seas/And now we die with the taste of decay on our tongues". The band are clearly saying something with such harsh lyrics: the only way to begin addressing our cyclical violence is to have very honest conversations about it. This is something that a Christian audience really needs to hear. After this we get what is, at least for me, the best song on the album. It has also quickly become one of my top 5 favorite songs of the year. "Visible Unseen" is such an important track. Not that the rest of the songs here aren't important (in fact, I would call this album as a whole essential for such a tumultuous year as 2018), but something about this one in particular just stands out. Garrett discusses the very real problem of all the homeless LGBT youth out there: both literally and metaphorically. There are many LGBT individuals out there who are rejected and kicked out of their own home by their family, and others who may live with their family but feel isolated because their families don't treat them as human. Garrett uses real-life stories from fans to inspire this song, which makes it hit home all the more. The chorus is the undeniable highlight of this song, as it is both catchy and straight up beautiful. Russell's clean vocal performance is top notch here, as he lets it show raw passion, and the beauty shine through that. This song doesn't just talk about these youth, though. It also calls out Christians in a way that I'm sure will make many uncomfortable: "This isn’t love, this is escape/Coerced conformity/Fixed on the dust in their eye/Forest fires rage in mine". What works best about this song is that most of the lyrics are inspired by specific Bible verses. Instead of using these verses to condemn these already broken youth, Garrett uses the lyrics to empower them through love and to tell his audience that they need to do the same. This is a powerful track that lovingly but firmly calls out hypocritical Christians, and also lovingly comforts those who feel like their identity is not their own.
After the perfectly ambient and instrumentally intriguing "Look Outside: Dream", we get what is perhaps one of the most intense moments on the album in "Vanity of Sleep". This song's tearing down of our consumer culture is something to behold. I feel like I'm repeating myself on this particular point but I don't care: I love the fact that Garrett holds nothing back in his feelings on where this harmful societal trend can lead. When all we care about is the limited and material, then none of us can truly connect with God. The guitars and drum work in this track are indescribably expert, and the breakdown in this song is something that will truly get your head banging. Garrett's love of spoken word is apparent throughout this song, as many moments read like slam poetry. That includes these excellent lyrics: "And everything I know is destructible/Artificial heart, obsidian soul/Encircled by dreams that are combustible /We trade the Garden for Cities, the Tree for a Tower /Surrendered our faith, became addicted to power". The "Mr. Robot" reference in this cut also brought a huge smile to my face. "In Absence" is something entirely new for the band: it's almost entirely clean vocals, and that only makes the song all the more better. It's also the only song by the band that has no annotations save for one brief one. Instead of putting a lot of intimate literature and media references into the lyrics, this song comes entirely from each band member's own heart. The lyrics in this song are simplistic, but they still hurt. This track is a dedication to those people who have families going through a memory loss disease, such as Alzheimer's or Dementia. Garrett and most of the other band members have experienced this themselves, and their detailing of watching their family members go into "a world of grey" brings tears to the eyes. In the chorus, Garrett's voice teeters between singing and screaming, and you can feel his unfiltered, personal sorrow at all of this. This song doesn't really offer any solution, and why should it? Diseases like these are just cruel, and they hurt. That is what the band wanted to express, and maybe their hope is that this song can just be something that shows other people going through this they're not alone.
This album continues to stay pitch perfect, with so many more standout moments to point out. "Share the Body" is yet another track that could be considered controversial as it discusses quite frankly about drug addiction (particularly heroin and opioids). The band goes into the perspective of someone who is addicted to these drugs, attempting to humanize them in the process. I think their attempt pays off. This doesn't mean that Garrett excuses their addiction; far from it. He still points out repeatedly in the song how dangerous these addictions are: they disconnect us from ourselves, from others, and from God. They offer happiness that just can't last. But the band doesn't bring this message out in a cliched way. I love this song musically. It has some really cool progressive metal influences, going through several different musical moments in the song's three and a half minute run time. I don't know how the band did so much musically in what is a pretty standard run time for a song, but they did it. I really appreciate the rock influences that appear in "Firstborn". In fact, if there was a song on here that could see success on a rock radio station, it could be this one. The lyrics in this track are much more metaphorical and symbolic than the other tracks on here, and every written moment on this song is a standout. I just invite you to check it out. My jaw dropped when I heard it the first time, and it still remains to be a significant highlight in an album full of masterful work. "Lower Empire" amps the intensity up to a new level, and brings about some death metal influences. Garrett's vocals are absolutely shredding on this track, and there's an interesting experimental usage of a vocoder as well. This song begs of the listener that we need to bridge the divide before we hit a new low: "Until you see your reflection through the scope of a weapon/Nothing will ever change/A revolution stirs in the silence/The movement defies this negative space". The album begins to wind down with "The Anatomy of Time", a very interesting combination of spoken word and metalcore. While this isn't one of my favorite moments on the album, it's still very interesting. And then there's "Depths III". Man, what a song. This song keeps building and building in a very epic fashion, and the climax was not at all what I was expecting it to be. I don't want to spoil it for you who haven't heard the album, but it's truly something impressive.
I was surprised by this album, and in the best way possible. Of course I always expect lyrical perfection from Silent Planet, but their writing on this album was on a whole new level. Every song on here contains such conviction and passion on what is being spoke about. The band doesn't ever hide in a corner: they make their points clear while still doing it in poetic and clever ways. The amount of wordplay I didn't mention is significant. There are a lot of clever moments: the way the band references literature as well as their own backing work is nothing short of genius. The musicality of this album surprised me even more. The emphasis on clean vocals was something I felt the band always needed, and it works significantly to their benefit in this release. Garrett has a beautiful singing voice, and I hope to hear it more on future releases. The influences on this album are vast, from metalcore to progressive metal to rock to maybe even rap/electronic. This album is nothing short of masterful. I didn't think another album this year would be able to get a perfect score, but I was proven wrong. This only makes making my year end list that much harder. "Where The End Began" is an album more than worthy of your time. Please, give it a shot!
Favorite Songs: "Visible Unseen", "In Absence", "Firstborn", "Vanity of Sleep", "Depths III", "Northern Fires (Guernica)"
Least Favorite Songs: NONE
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