REVIEW FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
It's utterly mystifying to us that we hadn't heard Silencio's Dead Kings before now. I mean, this was released in 2004, and we just found out about it now? The fact we even picked it up for inclusion in Crucial Blast was sort of a fluke; the label that released it, NYC's Mountain Collective, has recently gone kaput, and we wanted to order a bunch of the weirder Mountain releases (Flying Luttenbachers, Kites, Iceburn Collective, etc.)for the store before sh*t started to sell out/go out of print. While we were going through their list of releases and figuring out what we needed to get from them, we noticed a CD listed from a band called Silencio from Columbus, Ohio that we had never heard of before. There was a Naked City reference in the label's description of the CD, so we were naturally curious to see what they sounded like. Well, we finally got the CD in our hands this week and checked it out, and we can honestly say that this is one of THE BEST avant-heavy-instrumental albums we have ever heard, a righteously catchy pop/grind/jazz/avant/prog/salsa/death epic ! This quartet blazes through a sort of genre-hopping that indeed remind us of Naked City, but Dead Kings is really more like Naked City if they actually had immensely catchy, honest-to-goodness songs, meticulously assembled and played with an amazing amount of technical precision and melodic skills. Seriously, while listening to this album we had to stop and restart several songs just to be able to wrap our skulls around some of the amazing songs these cats have put together. And the songs don't just hop from one genre to another, it's more like they blend various styles and sounds together simultaneously into something that comes out new and amazing, in a way that we honestly think is totally seamless and just freaking perfect. We can't remember the last time we heard an album that was this intricately assembled and genuinely avant garde while being totally listenable, and amazingly catchy! Silencio's musical journey across the seven tracks on this album (all of which are ambiguously titled "15ifteen", "13hirteen", "11leven", etc., and in no apparent order) begins with a touchdown in some seriously fucking INSANE salsa inflected avant-prog-metal, like The Mars Volta with Orthrelm's Mick Barr splattering sick guitar shred across Latin percussive forms, then shifting to pretty, Fender Rhodes flavored post-rock, then mind boggling grindcore compostions, to painfully beautiful folk-pop with soaring vocal harmonies that explode into symphonic death metal dissolving into digitized pools of avant noise that reconstitute into ferocious metalcore crunch. And that's just the first 3 songs ! And like we mentioned before, the conglomeration of styles is strongly anchored by the band's ability to mold everything into really catchy, almost "pop" songs with hooks and killer riffs and a melodic mastery that you wouldn't expect to hear from a band crafting this sort of post-Tzadik avantism. Obviously we really, really recommend this to everyone that's into weird, eclectic instrumental/experimental music, as we really do think that Dead Kings might be our favorite avant instrumental album we've ever heard! It's hard to put into words just how f'ing rad this is, and quite how weird and precise and progressive and HEAVY yet packed with so many "pop" elements this is. Silencio's vibe reminds us of, well Naked City of course, but also they remind us of some other Tzadik Records alumni, namely Time Of Orchids and Kayo Dot, although the similiarities are more in spirit than in sound in the way that these bands use a broad musical pallette to create a style that's very unique and cerebral yet capable of being crushingly heavy when need be. There are also some moments that reminded us of Infidel?/Castro!, particularly when Silencio starts slinging around some crushing digitized doom splatter, and elsewhere the band jacks into hardcore jazz in the spirit of Iceburn, but in the end, Silencio are something very different, and come very highly, highly recommended!
REVIEW FROM DECOY MUSIC: Silencio constructs a delicate balance between jazz and metal. This is not a blending that you might expect, but instead a juxtaposition of the two in the instrumental realm. If ever there were a challenging listen, the band's 2004 release, Dead Kings is it. The album is packed full of complex, spontaneous instrumentation, and trying to keep track of where the band is going is like fighting your way through a jello maze. After long enouch exposure, the listener is rewarded with delicious jello and a great understanding of the band and their material. Silencio contains a uniqueness that sets the apart from--literally--every other band out there. The closest comparison one can draw is the warped mindset of Mike Patton, musical genius, trapped in the body of a unsuspecting John Coltrane. The live show speaks doubly to their gift and highlights the intensity of the music. Currently working on their upcoming release, the future holds only good things for Silencio. A bit mysterious, the band lets the music speak for itself, and it speaks waves. Upon initial listenings, it is difficult to deny that there is not a special spark present in the band--one that will only glow brighter in time. Other bands in the instrumental realm would do good to take a tip or two from Silencio; Dead Kings is a hidden gem of an album, a bit ahead of its time, but hopefully not the last of it's kind. A music scene without Silencio would be a very sad music scene indeed.
REVIEW FROM I ATE YOUR MICROPHONE: Those fearful that the instrumental scene is quickly becoming separated into delicately constructed, post-rock oriented bands and riff-laden, metal influenced acts will take quickly to Ohios most promising unknown band, Silencio. An attempt to describe Silencio and their debut project, Dead Kings, is an exercise all in itself, as the music consciously avoids any notion of genre labeling. Creating an utterly bizarre amalgamation of metal, jazz, and avant-garde rock, Silencio demonstrates an uncompromising will to destroy the musical façade that so many creative bands profess. Instead, they drift into a surreal domain of existence where they are completely free to live under their own set of rules. Exploring the world Silencio creates in Dead Kings is a complicated and challenging process. The band advances through jazzy segues and metallic bursts of vibrant energy, never apologizing for the interruptive compositions. Taken as a whole, their music is haunting and unsettling, effortlessly jarring the natural perception of musical transgressions and boundaries. Yet, this eerie and chilling presence is reconciled by a brute expression of disdain towards modern rock. Bands limit themselves to their medium and in some way or another each band just presents a permutation of the same basic foundations. Silencio reminds us that this isnt the way music used to be. Uprooting the last half century of repetitious, unchallenging rock music, Silencio reinserts a jazzy improvisational backbone to their creation and gives it a modern avant-garde twist. Had John Coltrane and Mike Patton ever collaborated, Silencio might be the result. If nothing else, they come across as sharing a mindset in common with these two giants. At times the album exhausts the mental concentration of the listener; this may not be of fault to the band, but rather the limits of ones own ability to grasp the non-linearity of Dead Kings. While many bands are oppressed by a physical realm grounded in reality, Silencio sheds off this harness and dances around in the land of surrealistic madness. Many may be unable to locate the direction this band is going in, but clearly this is because the listener is approaching the music with the incorrect set of tools. A fine readjustment is needed to take in Dead Kings and fully appreciate the smoothness of its presentation. Initial listens indicate the band has a heavy fondness of chaotic sonic structures, but once the music is saturated in the auditory system, a brilliant coherency and calmness appearsone which can only be called Silencio. Im skipping over any references the bands name may intentionally or unintentionally have to David Lynchs Club Silencio from Mulholland Drive. A similar understanding is reached at the completion of (several) plays of both the movie and the albuma certain sense of bewilderment coupled with an undying need to induce more time with the art. Nothing falls out of place over the 50ifty minute adventure; or, nothing falls out of place for a reason you dare question. In the end, Dead Kings proves to be a truism, for even though the physical embodiment has left, the music is unforgettable.
