My Indifference To Silence - Horizon Of My Heaven (CD)

Review
Pitchline Zine
7/10
03.03.2014

My Indifference To Silence es una de esas bandas que podríamos denominar como “One Man Band”. Una banda con un solo capitán al frente, un solo encargado de ejecutar la música, una sola mente tras el concepto musical, y en este caso que nos ocupa, un solo creador de “Horizon of my Heaven”, título elegido para este trabajo.

Vladimir Andreev es el nombre de la persona tras este proyecto. Un músico de la fría y helada Rusia que demuestra su pasión por la música extrema en su vertiente más lenta, pesada y oscura, o lo que es lo mismo y resumiendo, por el Doom y todo lo que envuelve este estilo tan tradicional e imprescindible del metal extremo. Sus influencias van por el camino de Saturnus, Daylight Die, Officium Triste o Novembre por mencionar algunas e indicaros por dónde van los tiros en referencia a su música.

Con estos argumentos musicales, este músico ha sacado un buen disco de Doom/Death metal frio con los ingredientes necesarios para conseguir agradar a los oyentes de este género. Es lento, es pesado, profundo, consiguiendo un buen resultado en el cómputo general de la grabación. Suena potente, muy duro dándole mucha cancha a la potencia musical gracias en parte a la importancia y presencia de guitarras. Unas guitarras que se basan en hacer lo necesario sin inventar nada nuevo centrándose fundamentalmente en los parámetros del estilo consiguiendo un resultado idóneo gracias en parte a la fuerza que imprimen en el sonido. La voz también es muy potente, muy cavernosa, no hay lugar para las voces limpias, solo se emplean tonos guturales, hecho este que hace potenciar aún más los temas haciendo su música todavía más agresiva. Estas líneas vocales junto al sonido de las guitarras son los aspectos más destacables de la música de My Indifferent to Silence.

Como digo, en general un buen disco, aunque cierto es que tuve que darle varias escuchas para cogerle el punto. Y por qué varias escuchas? Pues porque, como puede ocurrir en muchas ocasiones, no me dijo nada al principio. Me fue difícil engancharme sin salir de la escucha. Momentos muy buenos con otros menos interesantes o el hecho de que la parte final del disco fue la que más llamó mi atención, contribuyeron a esta difícil digestión inicial que tuve con el disco. Aun así, tras varias escuchas pude sacar una conclusión positiva del álbum y qué mejor que para apreciar el trabajo de este músico ruso el famoso refrán de Juan Palomo, “yo me lo guiso yo me lo como”.

Decir que este disco es el debut de My Indifference to Silence, un debut que cuenta con el apoyo de la ya archiconocida por estos lares, BadMoonMan, y no es de extrañar verles tras este trabajo observando el estilo que practica la banda y su lugar de procedencia. Todo encaja en el esquema de trabajo del sello ruso. Así que, otro fichaje más para este sello empeñado en ofrecer los estilos, y sub estilos del Doom. Todo un referente sin duda alguna.

Author: Leviathan

Review
Doom-Metal.com
29.07.2013

I feel that it goes without saying that one should take everything that a reviewer (Or writer of any nature) has to say with a grain of salt. We mold our writing around our opinions and the things that appeal to us and stand against the things that make our skin crawl, but without researching for yourself one would easily miss an abundance of great things that one jerk with an opinion didn't seem to enjoy. I'm clearly just making light of myself, but it's good for it to be known. As much as one would assume to be just common sense, there are people out there who would look at something negative and go "Well then that's clearly not worth my time" and not give it a second thought. So with all of that having been said, I'm going to dig into some Doom Metal, for better or worse...

The first thing that comes to mind when listening to the My Indifference to Silence album i've been given is a loose comparison to the Death Doom group Daylight Dies, who themselves could be considered a more straight-forward and to-the-point (And superior) take on what Opeth does. The production is great and everything is clear and concise and you quickly forget that the effort is actually another one-man project. One of the first musical things to point out is how ridiculous to drumwork (Which might be programmed) can get at certain points, easily switching it up from a mid-tempo drive to ferociously fast Death Metal kick runs. The vocal stylings are your typical (Not in a bad way) Death Doom fodder, where the vocalist relies solely on his growls to add to the onslaught of the music, with not many clean notes to be found (Aside from the occasional My Dying Bride-esque spoken sections). The guitar playing, for the most part, contains a strong level of heaviness with the gloomy sense of melody one would expect from this style of music, switching off from mid-tempo chugging to. Occasional use of clean picking is present, but it tends to be mostly used for song intros or interludes. There are keyboards as well, but they tend to be used as more of a background piece to add to the atmospherics for the tracks in question, with the exception being some delay smothered piano intros such as what can be heard at the beginning of 'Falling Stars'.

As with most Russian Doom Metal that I've heard over the last few years, there is a strong level of despair and dread lurking throughout every crevice of this piece. One of the few issues that I have with the album as a whole is that a lot of the songs seem to grow repetitious as you get further and further into the record. Despite there being some minor issues with the repetitiveness, it doesn't make what you're hearing unmemorable, as I can easily see this becoming a regular addition to my doomier listening habits. As I've already made note of, everything here sounds solid in a studio sense and if the project's lone member can gather up some more ghouls, this should definitely be turned into a live group and taken out on the road. Seriously, get yourself a backing band and get out there! There's certainly a level of catchiness here that isn't present in a lot of music of this nature which, for me, is definitely a welcome additional treat to the listening experience. If you're a fan of the bands I've already mentioned or maybe you're just looking for something newer in the Gothic-tinged Death Doom field, I heavily recommend giving these guys a listen. It may not be the freshest sound, but sometimes it doesn't need to be.

Author: Jon Carr

Review
Funeral Wedding
4/5

One man project de um veterano da cena russa, My Indifference to Silence, surgiu das cinzas de outro projeto intitulado On The Edge Of The Netherrealm capitaneado por Vladimir Andreev.

Encontramos aqui um doom/death com passagens funeral, muito bem composto e com muito peso.

Ao mesmo tempo em que se apresenta uma crueza nas linhas de guitarra, conseguimos identificar linhas melódicas, seja ela na guitarra ou teclado.

“Decline of your Consciousness” abre o disco da melhor forma. Seu instrumental arrastado, traz consigo uma atmosfera bastante densa. A medida que a música avança, ganha um pouco de velocidade.

Uma coisa que não gostei muito, que a bateria é programada e em algumas passagens soou um pouco artificial, mas isso não ofusca o brilho dessa música.

“For You” vem dando sequência para o álbum, apesar do mesmo nome da faixa do My Dying Bride, esta nada tem em relação aos britânicos. Aqui encontramos guitarras muito bem composta, andamento cadenciado com algumas quebradas, dando um toque bem interessante para ela.

Outro destaque vai para “Your Easy Death”. Com seu início alguns arpejos de guitarra e um vocal falado, para tão logo começar sua aura depressiva. Em meio a toda escuridão e lentidão, temos alguns fraseados de guitarra dando melodia para a faixa e quebrando um pouco a monotonia do funeral doom.

“Horizon Of My Heaven”, sempre que uma música dá nome ao disco, devemos prestar bastante atenção a ela, pois muitos julgam como sendo a melhor do disco. Eu sempre fiquei meio assim com esses pré-julgamentos, mas ainda assim essa é uma dos destaques desse álbum.

“Falling Stars” e “I Lost Myself” vem na sequência e ambas esbanjam muito peso e melodias fortes.

E para encerrar temos “We’re All On The Other Side” que começa de forma brilhante, mas tão logo começa os pedais duplos, voltamos aquela citação do início, e a velocidade apresentada aqui soou um bocado artificial.

No momento em que há uma quebra em seu andamento, as coisas funcionam perfeitamente.

Em suma, um bom álbum apresentado aqui e esperamos para que num próximo material esses pequenos detalhes sejam sanados e tenhamos um álbum ainda melhor do que esse.

Review
Forgotten Path
5/10

Making its debut, this Russian Death/Doom one-man project emphasizes the essential things from the first chords: the music is true, simple and perhaps a bit slow, with the vivid spice of Death Metal in the timbre of singing. Melodious and melancholic riffs. In general, it doesn’t doubt about the genre’s limits and meets the requirements of the style quite well.
The problem is that it meets the requirements - it is just ordinary Death/Doom and nothing more, nothing deeper or more mesmerizing, or more delicate, original and qualitative. It has simple, even reminding me of Откровения Дождя (well, it is the creation of this band’s ex-member) structures and undisguised consonances of gloom, which seem to be fighting with a Dark Metal sea. Such an overstatement isn’t just for fun, the title of the album and the existence of such songs like “Decline of your Consciousness” and “Falling Stars” point out that Владимир, the soul and the body of the band, has a world outlook that is really related to the Romanticism of the XIX century’s movement of irrationality and love of nature. Perhaps it is a necessity to pay attention to the tunefulness of the music, which sometimes brightens the sound. On the other hand, it forms quite a cheap spine, which better suits popular music - the music varies from catching melodies, which involve you in a fast and energetic harmony of assonances, to inserts, which bring in some nostalgia in long and monotonous song places. Though the songs are more or less similar and vary just conditionally, we can always find some luminous places, which let in some air like a fan. However, in every song the writer plays with the same melodies and the core is concluded of gloomy Doom Metal. As a result, listening to the album becomes boring. Although songs in the middle of the album seem to be purifying some hardly felt concept and everything even matches the standards of the genre, in general, it is hard to come to love and appreciate this album. Nowadays the production of every Metal genre is especially rich (well, maybe except Thrash or Heavy), it really is not a crime to skip the first piece of Владимир’s creation.

Author: Bloodie

Review
Evilized

Zahlreiche Gruppierungen wie ABSTRACT SPIRIT, WHO DIES IN SIBERIAN SLUSH oder MARE INFINITUM haben mit ihren Werken in den vergangen Jahren bewiesen, dass im frostigen Russland eine wohl florierende (Death/Funeral) Doom Metal Szene existiert, die zudem stetig wächst und durch mehr oder weniger erfolgreiche Kapellen erweitert wird. An interessierten Mitmusikern dürfte es dem aus Podolsk stammenden “Vladimir Andreev” somit sicher nicht mangeln. Dennoch hat sich dieser dazu entschieden, sein neues Projekt MY INDIFFERENCE TO SILENCE völlig im Alleingang zu bestreiten, nachdem er sich bereits zuvor bei den mittlerweile aufgelösten THE EDGE OF THE NEVERREALM für die gesamte Instrumentierung verantwortlich zeigte.

Die erste Frucht dieses Schaffens stellt die Platte “HORIZON OF MY HEAVEN” dar, die mit insgesamt neun Songs aufwartet, die eine knappe Stunde düsteren Death/Doom Metal bereithalten. Doch macht es der gute “Vladimir” dem Hörer nicht gerade einfach, sich eine wirkliche Meinung über die schwermütigen Kompositionen zu bilden.

Zweifelsohne halten Stücke wie “Decline For Your Consciousness” oder “Around You” viele gelungene Passagen bereit und vor allem die sehnsüchtigen Melodien offenbaren viel Herzblut des Songschreibers. Die verspielten Leads verschmelzen dabei des Öfteren mit den zarten Klängen von Akustikgitarren, die beispielsweise im abschließenden “We’re All On The Other Side” für eine schöne Stimmung sorgen können, auch wenn nicht unbedingt jedes Riff zünden will. Häufige Tempowechsel sorgen zudem für die nötige Abwechslung und bringen neben den gewohnt zähen und schweren Momenten auch überraschende Blastattacken mit sich, in denen das Schlagwerk reichlich Schwung ins Geschehen bringt. Rein instrumental kann sich MY INDIFFERENCE TO SILENCE so von vielen Kollegen absetzen.


Zu steril und kalt

Leider gibt es jedoch auch den ein oder anderen Haken auf “HORIZON OF MY HEAVEN”, wie etwa den Sound der Platte. Zu steril und kalt ertönen die Tracks, um eine intensive Atmosphäre erschaffen zu können, sodass viele Ideen ihre volle Wirkung erst gar nicht entfalten können. Hinzu kommt der zuweilen sehr künstliche Klang der programmierten Drums, der speziell in den schnellen Parts negativ auffällt. Nicht zuletzt kann auch der Gesang von Meister “Andreev” nicht immer überzeugen, zeigt dieser doch zu wenig Variation und präsentiert die Lyrik fast ausschließlich mit montonen Standardgrowls, ohne Emotionen.

So muss als Fazit festgehalten werden, dass “HORIZON OF MY HEAVEN” zwar in vielerlei Hinsicht ein recht ordentliches Debüt darstellt, aber ingesamt noch reichtlich Verbesserungsbedarf besteht. Sollte sich “Vladimir” doch dazu entschließen, MY INDIFFERENCE TO SILENCE durch einen Schlagzeuger und einen Sänger zu erweitern, könnte das nächste Album möglicherweise einen deutlich besseren Eindruck hinterlassen.