Silent Monolith – Empty Kingdom

 

 

Silent Monolith – Empty Kingdom
Self released – 2022
Rock, Hard, Metal, Doom, Stoner, Southern
Rated: ****

Been listening to Empty Kingdom by Nashville power-trio Silent Monolith for about a month now, constantly picking up on different things this little shifting sand of a record seems to offer up. Or as Doktor420 said to me when we were discussing this album, “there’s not a bad track on this album; but I did have to start over on a few tracks cause I lost focus. I felt I needed to confirm I was still listening to the same track.” And I think I can understand where he came from, cause the band has a knack for doing a lot in any given track. Recorded with a different line-up than the power three they are now, the eight tracks give you a whole lot of metal. Surely we can all hear some Metallica, some Corrosion of Conformity, Down and Clutch in their sound and yes, once again, the vocals. But there’s also something more in the region of Audioslave. And then there’s also a down tuned stoner edge we can surely call ancestral and awesome! As is that atmospheric opener Terrible Day Of The Lord; the way the guitars flow and drift and the vocals warn us about the coming Terrible Day Of The Lord, while the drums keep puncturing those slow-moving guitar waves, turning it all into a doom-tinged calling card. Moving immediately into track two Burn, giving you eighties metal, chainsaw riffs mixed with guitar hooks that will send you off into the air. With that extra touch of southern rock, southern metal, it rises the temperature a lot, which of course is very fitting for track called Burn. Title track Empty Kingdom starts off like a southern stoner metal, hard riding, gritty trucking, explosive riff monster! And guess what! It stays that way! What a track. Sin-Eater on the other hand is there to sooth even the most savage of beasts. Doktor420: “The Sin-Eater ballad calms me down. Well, until it rises and goes into stadium rock territory that is.” All The Same might be off-center again to what you thought Silent Monolith was all about; you might be hearing more Audioslave here or maybe that’s just me. Instrumental stoner metal pinball Qui Decipitur will not deceive you at all but for the break that starts at about two thirds of the track, instead it will move you after the break and rock you ferociously before it. Together with All The Same the most stand-out tracks on the record. Closer Lost Hope moves back into the territory Silent Monolith moves most comfortably in, southern, stoner, metal, and a lot of powerful high energy grooving. Empty Kingdom might be a transitional record, judging from all the different metal we’ve been served and the fact that they are now a power trio; but even so, Empty Kingdom stands tall like a pillar of majestic rock, a very loud guitar honoring monument. A Monolith!

(Written by JK & Doktor420)

Homepage

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram