Artist: Beneath The Silence
Album: Black Lights
Denmark’s female-fronted melodic metal quintet, Beneath The Silence, are releasing their new album Black Lights on February 11th 2022 through Prime Collective.
Of the album, vocalist Mette Hessellund says, “with this album we strived to push our sound further in all directions, while still keeping the core messages intact. Black Lights is about being in a place in life where everything seems dark and hope is only a source of disappointment. It’s the most personal material we’ve written so far, and the themes are derived from some rough years that have led to many admissions about who you become when you’re broken, and how it feels when you lose yourself and your dreams of the future. I wanted to explore the hopelessness that is found in such a moment, which led to somber themes of the record”.
Black Lights consists of ten tracks: “All I See”; “Break You”; “In The Shadow Of Your Eyes”; “Take Over Me; Open Wounds”; “The Taste Of Bitterness”; “Wide Awake”; “Over The Edge”; “Fear”; and “No Where To Go”.
While Hessellund bears a striking resemblance to Paramore’s Haley Williams, Beneath The Silence has a sound that aligns more with Evanescence—so much so it’s difficult not to compare the two bands. Hessellund has an amazing, powerful voice that rises with the symphonic instrumentals of the band (without any screaming), however the lack of gentle piano or string instruments used to compliment her voice makes the album begin to feel noisy after listening to a few songs in a row. The track “Wide Awake” is placed towards the end of the album and has a much slower, orchestral vibe, which I really enjoy. The beginning of the song reminds me of the classic opening to My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade”.
The band has also released music videos for the singles “Fear” and “No Where To Go”. I watched the video for “No Where To Go” first, and I enjoyed it. It’s a typical metal band music video—all the band members are dressed in black looking somber, playing their instruments in an empty, castle-like building. Simple, but fitting for the band’s aesthetic. I watched the video for “Fear” next, and I wasn’t as impressed. The videos are essentially the same, but the latter features the band backlit by blinding lights and a smoke machine. There’s nothing overly wrong with the video, it just seems gimmicky. With the song’s straightforward lyrics, I think the band could have created a more interesting story for the video instead of copy-pasting their previous content.
Overall, I liked Black Lights. If you like rocking out to some Evanescence, Beneath The Silence is definitely worth a listen.