Silent Planet rereleased their 2014 work The Night God Slept as a completely remastered work, and the results are solid. Guitar tones are much more clean and clear, the drumming sounds crisp with a noticeable “pop,” and the vocals are much more defined. The end product is, undoubtedly, a finely-polished album where the sounds are distinct from one another and, while there are plenty of nasty sounding riffs (see “Wasteland”), nothing sounds muddied together. Overall, the decision to remaster The Night God Slept was one that payed off very well.
If you enjoyed the 2014 release, you’ll find more to love here as you pick up on some of the nuances that may have been missed previously. An excellent example of the difference between the O.G. album and Redux is “XX (City Grave).” The notes of the guitar have been given more clarity and brought to the foreground of the track. Also look to “Darkstrand (Hibakusha)” to really get a feel for how tonally divergent the two releases are. The original sounded great, but the Redux version takes a step up with the clarity of instrumentation.
The technical skill of Silent Planet doesn’t rest only with the musicianship– Garrett Russell’s lyrics are among the most technical in the entire music scene: “This injustice renders my thoughts ineffectual,” “Quantify time with meter and rhyme to calculate a way to prove that you are alive.” Pulling from historical events, psychology, and theology, Silent Planet delve into topics and themes that will push listeners beyond a typical music experience.
While their music is engaging and enough to bang your head to, the lyrics continually pull you deeper into the music and force you to wrestle with the concepts they present. This is particularly noticeable in tracks like “Native Blood:” “Our race is a bloodstain spattered on a profane political campaign– manifest your destiny. Stripes and stars comprise my prison bars, the cost of liberty,” and “For you know only a heap of broken Image and when you rid this earth of God we shall shelter Him underground” from “Wasteland.”
It isn’t just the lyrics that are gripping in Silent Planet’s work: they aren’t content with the typical formula of heavy music (chugs, breakdowns, solos). The musicality is dynamic with a wide range that varies between pummeling rhythms, melancholy interludes, rage-induced screams, and frenetic guitar work.
This is a band that produces albums that do not sound the same from start to finish. From the themes to the sonic changes in the instrumentation, Silent Planet keeps listeners on their toes.
Get the album on Apple Music and Spotify.
Related Artists: Oh Sleeper, Fit For A King, For All Eternity, Invent, Animate
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