Silent Rage – The Silent Rage

The people who have got to know me well throughout the years, know my opinion about Greek bands. I will state it to you all in case I could be misunderstood here. I always believed that from a point and on, many bands in our country waited by fate or other factors, to drive things towards the way they wanted, meaning that away goes the effort they should provide to themselves in order to do something remarkable.

It has been known to all of us, that without hard work, you can’t achieve nothing at all. You can’t just sit and wait from a record company to sign you, from a promoter to put you as a support group in a good gig and from a reviewer to give you a high rating, especially if you don’t deserve it. Greece has produced great bands through the years, needless to mention which ones, we all know them and admire them for their character and personal style. But I still believe we could do better. It’s all about the way of thinking in people’s minds I guess. This litle prologue comes here, in order to show you that all of these DON’T exist here.

Ladies and gents, I am in the (very) pleasant position to make a review for the first effort of Athenians The Silent Rage. A band which shows its love about pure and true heavy metal (again I will say that not only I dislike these definitions, but i also think they don’t find meaning in most cases). But as a goal in injury time in a football derby, the title debut ep by The Silent Rage catches us by surprise. Honest, heavy, right to the point, with a good production and simple but not naive structures in their songs. Especially we have to mention the excellent guitar work, especially the leads hide some unfound magic that lies in the mid 80’s or early 90’s.

The influences of the band might be whatever made its breakthrough these golden years in the past. But the good thing is that despite they sound traditional, they don’t try to convince us that they are the truest of all or the new heavy metal saviours. I can imagine the members of the band showing a lot of love to what they created, especially during the recording process they must have done their best numerous times, so that the result would sound like it is. In the 23 minutes (a magic number, that brings good memories. Think about it a while…) that this ep lasts, you will hear some great vocals, a steady rhythm section and guitars that are the driving force to all this. The sweet Maiden-like melody of the last track ”Litany Of Imprisoned Souls”, brought a big smile on my face. Sounding like an honest tribute to a once great band, The Silent Rage reveal besides their dedication to our music, also a clever mind of what’s about to come.

I really wish these guys to continue the hard work and not become a cogwheel in the gear of the music industry that devours bands, especially from Greece. Once you go on like this, fate will bring it upon you one day. But even if it doesn’t, you will at least know that you tried as hard as you could. My respect to you guys. Honestly, I am a fan of yours from now on. Period.

Website: www.myspace.com/silentragegreece

Aggelos “Redneck” Katsouras.