“Can you tell me if I’m terminal?“
Silent Planet have been a metalcore band for about 12 years now. I discovered them shortly after their album Everything Was Sound was released in 2016, so while my knowing of them is still relatively fresh in comparison to their tenure as a group, it all has been nothing short of amazing. What really drew me onto Silent Planet in the first place though was vocalist Garrett Russell‘s lyricism.
“In my endless dance with entropy
I must rescind my sentience, the sickness that I know
Rearrange the disarray of disintegrated senses
Puzzle pieces, spectral splinters of a soldier’s worn and tattered soul” (“Panic Room“)
With such depth and a vocabulary miles above everyone else in the genre, I could go on for ages about just how good Russell‘s lyricism is. Further, with each release it seemed that the California lovers would just get better and better. And in 2018, they set the bar astronomically high with When the End Began. Sporting some of my favorite songs they’ve ever made (“Firstborn“, “The Anatomy of Time“, “The New Eternity“), When the End Began quickly became my favorite album from them, and Silent Planet became one of my favorite bands ever. In the beginning of 2020, they released their single “Trilogy” which was the first taste of new sonic territory for the quartet. The song was accompanied with a headlining tour, one which I would luckily see just a few days before the Covid-19 lockdowns took place.
While the world seemed to stop moving, Silent Planet certainly did not. They worked on their newest album Iridescent during some of the darkest times many of us have ever seen, and may ever see. “1-1-2” sets the tone for the album magnificently, with an ambience that is foreshadowing of the haunting to come, as well as a loud horn/synth that creates a rich, cinematic and dramatic atmosphere. Transitioning all too well into “Translate the Night“, an incredibly heavy hitting track, showcasing the new sonic territory (of heightened ambience, cinematics, electronics and outright heaviness) the band will venture throughout on Iridescent. Silent Planet immediately live up to their lyrical prowess here (“If you’re breathing again, spell out the world with open eyes and speak with the caution of colliding satellites.”), showcasing that while they’re venturing into new musical directions, their lyrical and emotional potency remains intact.
“Trilogy” is, for its namesake, rightfully the third track on the album. An incredibly brutal track diving into Russell‘s mental breakdown and stay at a mental hospital in late 2019, a topic that many tracks on this album seem to relate to. At first, I wasn’t sure if this song belonged on this album, most because of how long ago it was released (all the way back in February of 2020). However, after hearing the entire album, this song absolutely earns its rightful place amongst the rest of Iridescent. Following on, “Second Sun” provides a masterful contrast of its heavy verses; to its massive, beautiful chorus. This track has one of my favorite vocal melodies on the entire album, and showcases just how amazing of a voice Thomas Freckleton has (“I feel it all. I feel it all. Why do I haunt my body? I’m wide awake underneath it all. You’ll learn to shed somebody.“).
We see the heavier side of Silent Planet again with “Panopticon“, another immaculate behemoth of a track from the quartet, which lyrically feels like the sequel to “The New Eternity” from When the End Began (“The culture is charged, amplified, then polarized. But our nerves are dulled and our souls lobotomized. We sleep with pixels in a dream machine but we lose ourselves and retreat to screens.”) The guitars are monstrously heavy, with Mitchell Stark opting to record the entire song on a bass guitar, giving the track a wonderful sense of potent aggression through its low-end punch. Next up, is “The Sound of Sleep” which fans had a first taste of during the band’s Terminal livestream concert. Russell‘s lyricism on this track is especially incredible in its vocabulary and descriptiveness.
“Rip the wrath out from the sun; carve its rage down into my lungs. Bastard Sun, you’ll burn alone. Cinch
me up with shards of glass, I’m sung to sleep by cars that crash. I’ll bow to gods that damned me back
and spun my spine to hear it snap.” (“The Sound of Sleep“)
“Alive, as a Housefire” is another aggressive track that slides like a snake between the heaviness of Russell‘s screams, and the ear-pleasing singing of Freckleton. This lyricism on this track is quite to the point, with Russell cursing for the very first time during its end breakdown, screaming “Fuck the system, break the prism.” The track also quite effectively commentates on some heavy topics, focusing largely on American politics, immigration laws and society – all topics Silent Planet are no strangers to.
“Identical America: The beautiful land of control. See the cages. Freedom/Fiction. Hear the fascist or ask yourself, ‘Will my anesthetized half-lies still suffice to stifle what life we hoard till we die?’ We hide in the guise of benevolence until the system burns. Burn. Burn. Burn. A system built by subjection must change or face insurrection.“
“Terminal” gives us somewhat of a break from the onslaught of heaviness at a time that feels perfectly paced. This track is easily one of my personal favorites on Iridescent. Accompanied with heavy ambience, guitarist Mitch Stark shows off just how incredible his voice is by taking the reins with many sections across this song (“All these pills won’t scratch the surface if the cancer’s in my soul. Am I terminal? Every day is an anesthetic; dying young just to grow old in this terminal.”) “(liminal)” is an ambient interlude with soundscapes of what it may feel like being in psychiatric ward. With indistinguishable voices, both robotic and crowded, might this be the ambient sound of that ward, or could it be the voices in our heads?
The final quarter of this titan of an album starts with “Anhedonia“, a track that follows the trend of bleakness and dark atmospheric melodies explored by Silent Planet. Lyrically, Russell dives further into a topic similar to that in “Alive, as a Housefire“, speaking of just how far society seems to be falling under the fist of demagogues. (“I see the flesh as it hides in your teeth, it’s the skin that you took when your lips brushed the cheek of the savior you follow (ostensibly); preach to the sheep who will follow you into antipathy.“)
If you’re a fan of gigantic choruses, “Till We Have Faces” will be amongst your favorites. This track is truly immaculate with Russell‘s pitched screaming accompanied with singing by Freckleton (and maybe even Stark hitting those lower harmonies). This song is not only one of my favorites across Iridescent, but is amongst my favorites they have ever made (“Even the silence has a rhythm and as I beat against the earth it sounded like omission. Laying inside the lowland, I bowed within the reeds. I gave myself to consequence when grace devoured me.“) “Till We Have Faces” is one of those tracks that gave me goosebumps, like many others upon first listen on Iridescent.
Finally, we dive into the closer/title track “Iridescent“. It has a similar cinematic and dark ambient vibe to “Depths III” from When the End Began, which, much like “Depths III“, works perfectly as a conclusion to the album. This closing track was written about the passing of Russell‘s dog Birdie, which may feel especially raw to those of us who may have lost a pet, or a companion of any sort at some point in our lives. As I listen to this track on repeat, and read and reread the lyrics, it feels almost like ‘the five stages of grief,’ ending on a happy note resembling acceptance and love. (“Burning through a patchwork sky you left on chariots of fire. I only know that you will go where only love can bring you home.”) It’s a gorgeous, heartbreaking and cathartic closing track that, even among some of the most raw lyricism found on Iridescent, feels particularly personal and raw.
Iridescent is Silent Planet‘s most complete and best album to date, an album that I take no issue in labeling as truly perfect. With Alex Camarena‘s drumwork being beyond phenomenal (as always); Thomas Freckleton‘s bass work and vocals here being far and away best he has ever done; Mitchell Stark expanding on his incredible musical creativity, guitar work, as well as showing us a new side of himself by taking the lead on some vocals; and Garrett Russell sounding better than ever with his vocals and intriguing lyricism. With Iridescent Silent Planet assert their position amongst the best metalcore acts in the world. The sky is the limit for the California metalcore quartet, and they are amongst the stars.
Iridescent will be available next Friday, November 12th via UNFD, and you can pre-order the record here.
10/10