Volos strikes again! Silent Winter return with their third full length album, this time from an even bigger label. If anything, the band after their reactivation is making steady steps upwards winning a bet with themselves every time.
Three years have passed since the excellent “Empire Of Sins” and although I’ve had the pleasure of hearing snippets of the album almost all the way through, it’s something different altogether listening to the material in its entirety. The fact that there was a new member in the band, Maria Mosheta, caused me an extra interest, since I wanted to see how much the existence of a permanent member on keyboards would affect their sound now.
Moving on, “Utopia” sounds like a logical continuation of the previous albums. The band sticks firmly to their base which is none other than European power metal as defined by bands like Helloween and Stratovarius. But, more than ever before, there are also “openings” to other sounds.
Let me explain; there are tracks that have the classic Silent Winter sound. For example, the opener “We Burn The Future” could well have a place on a good Helloween album, while on the other hand “Silent Shadows” would be envied by the Finns. But, we also have tracks like “Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” that could be coming from Sentenced… “Funeral Album”. I’m not kidding! That’s a mid-tempo extremely commercial anthem. Also, I should mention “Hands Held High” which gives Sabaton a wink.
The keyboards understandably make their presence more noticeable on this album, maybe not on all the tracks, but they are there sometimes up front and sometimes filling in the sound. Livas also sounds more experimental than ever. Yes, the album doesn’t lack his high vocals, but he is trying some pretty interesting things.
The whole package is well polished by Steve Lado and the cover artwork has the detail needed to stare at it on vinyl for hours.
Bottom line: on “Utopia” Silent Winter sound more mature than ever. Importantly, each new work is, at the very least, a step up. Fans of this particular sound will hardly find a better work than this one this year, I believe.
