Album Review: Silencer - Death, Pierce Me

Silencer - Death, Pierce Me

Prophecy Productions - 2001

2.5/10

For about as long as I've been familiar with Silencer's existence, they have basically been a meme to me, nothing more. As much as I shat on it, and laughed at the hilarious vocals, as well as the ridiculous lore behind front man Nattramn's uh, backstory, it occurred to me that I never sat and properly listened to the entire record from front to back. The lone full-length titled Death, Pierce Me seems to have spearheaded what would become known as "depressive black metal," something I basically ignore outside of two Ghost Bath records. For nothing else, I guess the Swedish project's historical significance has to mean... something? A quick search did show the genre existing a few years prior to this, but I can't say I recognized a single name.

On paper, Death, Pierce Me isn't structurally too different than the Norwegian, second-wave format. Long, atmosphere-heavy songs carry roughly fifty minutes worth of music in the form of only six tracks. A grim and cool atmosphere is established, degrading the riffs into a coarse but comprehensive soundscape meant to enhance the heavy backbone, while leaving a bleak impression on the occasional soft parts. Acoustic guitars with the help of synth layers will spruce up both sides here and there for extra toppings, and cleaner electric guitars tend to weld it all together. For the most part, you wouldn't expect this to be much different than the typical Emperor or Mayhem album. Except...

We'll cover the infamous part next, that being the horrendous cry/squeal vocals. Obviously this is somewhat common for the sub-sub-genre at hand, but Silencer's brand seems to do absolutely nothing to add even the slightest hint of desirability. There is the occasional blackened shriek that fits far more into the blackmosphere such as in the bulk of "Sterile Nails and Thunderbowels," but as soon as you're about to take a shred of this seriously, the softer back of the song ruins that. Laughable wimpers that sound like an awful Yoda impression mixed with a distraught toddler's tantrum overtake a window of softer passages that work as a break from the harsher sections. Once the momentum picks back up, on come the crying wails that ruin any sense of decent riff writing behind them. It could potentially be easier to overlook if the vocals were at least toned down, layered back, or just less ambitious as a whole (see Ghost Bath's Moonlover), but that must be asking too much. For some reason, "I Shall Lead, You Shall Follow" randomly drops to demo-level quality, with the roughness somehow making these features even worse, not better.

All of that does also beg the question; is the music itself any good? The answer is really just a simple "I guess?". For the most part, the rhythms are about as black metal by the numbers as the atmosphere and general vibe establish up front. There are a few notable moments, like the bassy rumble that introduces "Taklamakan" before breaking into explosive drum blasts accompanying tremolos, but even this is later ruined with what sounds like hiccup/gargling shrieks of pain. You can find your occasional guitar or keyboard melodies that work decently enough. The opening licks on the album's title track are intriguing (at first), and the closing piano instrumental "Feeble Are You, Sons Of Sion" is probably the best three minute streak on the album. Cool, we'll throw Nattramn a few points for all of this, even if it takes also sifting through the eleven minute snoozefest called "The Slow Kill In The Cold" to find nothing of note.

Even with these areas worth at least acknowledging, I wouldn't call this anything resembling good music, even ignoring the vocals. They're obviously the worst part, but ultimately they just make a boring album far worse, and any good comes with bad tenfold. If you took the formula of In The Nightside Eclipse (an album I find overrated as is), cheapened everything about it, threw horrendous vocals to the top, and made the themes depressing and suicidal, you'd have this record. Even its presentation of such depressing themes is laughable and impossible to take seriously, sounding as if it was conjured up by a middle-schooler who's parents just don't understand. Each layer peeled back reveals something worse than its shell, and I can't really call Silencer's one full-length album anything short of a fifty-minute, cringe, pile of shit. I hope creating this helped the mastermind's mental situation, because it made mine worse.