Silencer-The Great Bear

Vanity Music Group
2012

The Great Bear is a concept album from Silencer. The concept is a what if scenario where the band consider what would have happened had Soveit Russia gone past America's moon landing by travelling somewhere further. Concept albums can be a mixed bag. That's all well and good to tell a story with your album because good music writers should be able to tell a story, but of course not all musicians are good writers. All the press and reviews on this album are likely to going emphasize the concept element and that's fine plus the band obviously put in a great of effort to tell the story they wanted.  The important thing here to me is the music more than the concept and it's also the strongest part of this album as well. Silencer grab handfuls of stoner rock, prog metal, classic metal and more as they us on this journey.  "I am thunder" make think of what if Metallica had gotten heavier instead of going softer back in the 90's. The title track is like a train coming after you in slow motion. "The roar" combines power and precision and manages to perhaps be the most involved song on the album. The music is mostly basic, but the song structures are what really holds it up. The vocals were more melodic at times than I was expecting, but mostly they complemented the music. There are some dry moments where it felt like they were stretching the songs more than they had to and found myself waiting for something to happen. For the majority of the time they kept on top of the proceedings.