My Silent Wake/The Drowning – Black Lights & Silent Roads
Bombworks Records
Black Lights & Silent Roads is a split album between the two well established UK doomsters, My Silent Wake and The Drowning. Each band has contributed 4 songs, including a cover of one of the other band’s songs. For those who have never heard anything from either band, this is the perfect place to start, with each track displaying a different aspect of the bands.
My Silent Wake starts of the album with “I Am (Eternity)”, an Attrition cover. Gloriously melodic and deliciously haunting, it could go on forever and I’ve never get sick of it. The next two tracks, “Bleak Endless Winter” and the Drowning cover “Devoid of Life” show the heavier side of the band, and by heavy I mean crushing! The fourth song tracks in at an epic 23 minute long, demonstrating their folky, progressive, laid back side. Everything is played perfectly, and it’s not hard to see why they’re one of my favorite bands.
The next four songs were my first introduction to The Drowning, and have I been missing out! With a similar sound to My Silent Wake, but focusing more on the heavier side of doom, they rip through their half at a crushing snail’s pace. Their very un-acoustic cover of the acoustic MSW track “Photograph” is pure brilliance. I’ll be very surprised if The Drowning doesn’t have a bright (or dark as the case may be!) future ahead of them.
If you like doom metal, My Dying Bride, Paramaecium, etc, get a copy of this split album. NOW! Have I used the word ‘crushing’ yet?
[rating:6/7]
Rowland Gwynne
