Silentium “Sufferion – Hamartia of Prudence”

You may be certain that this is the most difficult review I ever wrote… Not because I don’t comprehend their music, dislike or don’t find it captivating enough to make me able to write some words about it! It’s simply because every note and word has touched me with such pain and sadness that everything I have felt since about five months ago until now always reach their peak while listening to “Sufferion.- Hamartia of Prudence”.
I bought it at around that time and this is my third attempt to write this review while listening to the music, simply because I didn’t felt “healthy” enough to do it. Today, I’m a bit better…
I’m not saying that I will give you exactly what I feel while listening to it but I intend to write a review decent enough to justify Silentium’s quality and my opinion of them having released the best Gothic/Doom – metal cd last year.
“Infinita Plango Vulnera” was my first acquaintance with this band… A gathering of woe and pain inebriated by shadows which I reviewed for the “tenderly hibernating” The Land of Sorrow Magazine back in 2001…
Time has passed, tears have been shed, joy has crossed our hearts and the memories of such sweet moments where innocence found its grace has brightened the path in which many dreams came to rest. Then, a few years ago, they released “Altum”, a brightly acclaimed Cd where one could find the same emotional chemistry that twisted our souls into a sad and bittered shame.
Finally, last year, they released what I consider to be their masterpiece, a conceptual flame shrouded by passion and despair within a tale worthy of entering Shakespeare’s realm of majestic riches. It consists of sixteen ( 16 ) tracks being eight of them such inducing distressful songs as the other eight falls in a very well played theatrical drama with convincing actors and sound effects.
It all starts with a letter in August 2nd, 1787… Written in tears, carried by passion, inflamed by love… It all starts with wishes and remembrances… A sad tale invoked by a lonesome cargo boat captain, Antracone, for his beloved Prudence born within the walls of rich nobility…
Maybe it’s the saddened ambience of Winter… Maybe it’s the painful dreams that those words invoked in me… Maybe it’s just the poetry of so many weary melodies carried within a fragile soul, a withered heart… But I cried…
The first song, “Flame still burns”, led me to the memories of such innocent times where I was truly happy… Yet, the nostalgic and desperate melodies mingled with such passionate words, as in the refrain “My Flame still burns/Hurting you, I'm bleeding too”, just pounded around my aching brain with such a tormented grief that sometimes I felt to weak to listen to it…
Other silvery moments of jewelled beauty that I adore are “Lost is my name” and “Heart unyielding”… nevertheless, the other songs are really captivating and tend to lead you into a painful, a highly melancholic horizon of praising sadness and woes for it grabs you by the soul and, after some listenings, you will find yourself humming to their melodies and singing their lyrics…
This is the Romeo and Juliet of all eras, of all lands, of all times… This is the crippled misery that surrounds even the most beautiful jewel… Scoria is a half demon, half human that plays his part in such tragic tale… A tale you can only know the end if you listen and read it…
Gathered by tearing keyboards parts, engulfed by desperate violin melodies, led by powerful guitars into a devastating landscape and sustained by mostly mid – paced drum rhythms, one discovers the drama that surrounds all those enloved. All nicely adorned by an enthralling female vocalist and clear male vocals, although one could listen to the occasional growls from time to time.
This pearl of enchanting beauty was recorded and mixed at Studio Sundi Coop, produced by Tuomas Holopainen and co-produced by Tuomo Valtonen & Silentium, being mastered at Finnvox by Mika Jussila. Sound design and programming; radio play directed, recorded and edited by Jani Laaksonen, their violin player.
If you don’t believe how great this fine example of Gothic/Doom is, just hear the Cd and discover what wanders through your soul, what the meaning of ART is!!!
The band describes their sound as “Theatrical – Metal”… It sure is…

Silentium Interview (2004)

1- Greetings! Formed in December 95, you’ve already released 2 demos, 1 Mcd and 3 cds. Anyway, why Silentium? How do you see the development of your sound from the demo ages until now?

Man…I wouldn’t call it development for my part. I lost most of my right hand fingers in 1995, so most of this Silentium era has been kinday re-inventing of the Bass playing for me. I would say that the style of Silentium has become more daring with the recording of Sufferion. There is a certain twist of its own now in it. Obviously the arrangements have grown bigger and larger during the years. I’m not making much sense am I? ( Solitudinis: it depends of the fatter the situation is hehe )

2- Has you didn’t have any major line – up changes your sound established within the realm of Gothic/Doom – Metal… A style you always wanted to play before starting the band? Since when did you decided to call your music “Theatrical – Metal”?

Since when has anyone called it theatrical metal? (Solitudinis: Just go to http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=3018 and read the review… one can find the link on your website )
Gees…It sounds about right with Sufferion, and I study and read a lot of drama and poetry, but I wouldn’t say that the material we’re working on now would have anything to do with the world of Theatre…And by the way…The Line-up is chancing. Our original Drummer, Jari Ojala is replacing Janne (not related) Ojala within few weeks. The Female singer and Violin player are also due to be replaced.

3 – This is your third release through Spikefarm Records… Why did you chosen it? Were there any other labels interested in you back then? For how many cds is your contract? Are you satisfied with the promotion?

The Spikefarm choose us… not the other way around…that’s how it works, at least in Finland (too many band’s, too few labels).
Spikefarm would probably treat us better, but is only a sub-label of Spinefarm. Spinefarm has been recently sold to a foreign major company, thus bands like Silentium gets to be treated like shit. We ain’t too fucking happy about the non existing promotion they’ve given us, and we would be more than happy to get out of this “safe bet” business bullshit that Spinefarm nowadays seems to be about. I know it is the same shit that is a foot everywhere, but Spinefarm hasn’t been honest about it, that’s the worst part. We’ve never REALLY known what’s going on around us.

4 – “Sufferion – Hamartia of Prudence” is your third Cd… A masterpiece inebriated by a dreaming yet painful scent… What have been the reactions so far by fans and media?

It’s a Love/Hate situation, and that’s a good thing. Nobody has been going on with this “Oh, it’s a nice record” bullshit anymore. Art of any form should not be sterile or just “nice”.

5 - Have you had many gigs after the release? How would you describe a Silentium’s gig?

We don’t usually have many gigs…We don’t have a promotional company behind us. But we’ve had like a gig or two a month since Sufferion went out, and I think they have been the best gigs yet. Finally there seems to be a lot of vibes and energy on stage. Live gigs have really come a long way.

6 – Although you have had a better layout on your previous releases, this one still enchants the viewer by giving a glimpse of what awaits… An ancient tale about a grieving love, withered by Time as the pages of an old book… yet, still burning like it was a tale of all times… Why that particular cover? Were you so fascinated by My Dying Bride’s “Like gods of the sun” which also had a butterfly? The back cover also gives reasons to wonder… Tell us also about it…

Well…We usually prefer the lay out is made by someone who is a friend of ours. Kinday a win win situation between friends. But this time we needed some outside view on these things, and decided to go along with whatever this artist called “Judas” came up with. I don’t know what kinday mashrooms was this lad on when he made this cover. It’s got some really old Swedish bible pages on it and some strange oddwhats. I think it’s cool

7 – I think you should know by now how much this release means to me… The story marks a scar in my heart… Anyway, who came up with the idea and why? Why the XVIII century? Was it difficult to write about it, did it take many sleepless nights out of you?

Well first of all…thanks mate. That really meant a lot to us. Jani came up with the Idea of filling every goddamn minute of a normal 74 minute CD with something. I wrote something, he directed a play of it, and that's that. We thought it was something new, but as always is the case, some poor cunts in Germany had made the same error long before. heh.
The writing process was swift. We had somewhat 4 weeks to write, direct and record the play, and there are lots of bits and pieces I would re-write if we could have had the time. Everything that has to do with History has always been close to my heart. As I think about it, every Silentium song reminds me of some piece of History, some era long gone.
I should have spend more time with writing the play, but we had the
arrangements, lyrics and vocal melodies under work at the time, and I spent
a pile of nights writing them down. The raw material comes quickly, you only have to live a little and suffer some 3 months of arctic darkness (kaamos) every year, but the finalizing and arrangements, that’s the hard part.

8 – Was it hard to find such suitable actors and actresses for the spoken parts? Where did you find them all? Could you tell us something more about them? They have a great british accent ( excuse me if any british thinks otherwise… ) which is quite fitting within the century chosen…

Well, they were mates of Jani, our violin player. Most of them are from the Acting Schools of Tampere. We needed actors and they needed some experience, and voilá, yet another win win situation. I’ve never met the actors myself. Would love to, actually. To answer to your question...Naah, I think actors were found quite smoothly and the only phoney english accent was with the only native speaker, that's Silentium for you...

9 – Why did you used the melody from “With blood adorned “ ( Infinita Plango Vulnera – 1999 ) as the background music on the theatral track “The conspiracy”? Well, it has that classical feeling but any other reason?

Oh You’ve spotted it…well the idea was, we needed some 18th century music on it so Sami and Jani wen’t to Jyväskylä university, where Sami does his musical studies and started to mess around with some authentic 18th century instruments. The final cut has two old Silentium songs in it, and ain’t gonna tell ye what the other one is… ( Solitudinis: Bahssss you old cunt licker!!! ) Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a good example of that historic twist Silentium has always had.

10 – You have decided to use a producer instead of dealing all with the recording of the Cd… Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish fame… How did that happened? Were you satisfied with his work and will use him for future releases?

Tuomas had had some nice things to say about our music since the demo tape era. I don’t know why, but it was Sami’s idea to have Tuomas aboard on it and it went swell. We never really had any arguments or trouble with him. We did have some alcohol problems with him. There never seemed to be enough booze around…

11 – Could you tell us some info about your first video “Painless” from “Altum”? Who came with the concept ( what it was like? ) and directed it? Was it released on cd or only available on the net at http://www.sfperkele.net
which was, while online, the most downloaded video on SFP's video of the week with over 1200 downloads? Could one see it elsewhere?

It was an utterly homemade video. We made it by ourselves. I think it is one of the nuttiest music videos ever and hopefully never ever released. But on the other hand it’s different. Not the usual MTV gothic video isn’t it?. And it’s filmed in locations of our small hometown, nothing phoney about it. Hayhat hillybillies in a hayhat hillybillie environment.

12 – I found out that you appeared in a book about the influence of
vampirism, horror and gothic in music by Dr. Julio Ángel Olivares Merino ( which is a teacher of English and American Gothic Literature in the University of Jaén, Spain and he's also President of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula in Spain ) side by side with Agathodaimon, Within Temptation and Abyssos…
How did it happen? Has it already been released? What were your reactions towards it? Have you been contacted by some of the readers of it? How much space was given to the band?

I don’t know what Dr. Merino has been up to. He contacted us on the matter and I was like…cool, okay, sounds great, and I was flattered and all that, but I haven’t heard about the man since. So Julio, if you read this all the way in Spain, give us a howler and let us know what’s up, right?

13 – Have you started rehearsing new songs? Any differences from “Sufferion…”?

I don’t think we’ll do any playwriting on this one. The line-up is about to change and so will the sound I think. Too early to throw in some speculations on what direction, I've only heard few of Sami's newbies, but I’d guess something rougher and up-tempo is in process. From the lyrics I can say that something truly strange is on the way...

14 – Is it in your plans to release a Live Cd or even a Dvd? I’m asking it because, nowadays, everyone seems to do it which is a great way for fans to discover something more about a band… When will your site be updated?

If there is a record company which, in their right mind, would have a “Silentium live” DVD released, I’d volunteer for that. But who knows. I haven’t heard about any plans of that kind.

15 – Well, as it seems this is the end of the interview… Give us some of your tragic poetry to conclude it properly… All the best!!!

This is a part of some new material(hopefully):

..Shall rise the burned, sinner and weak,
the quiet, fool, humble and meek,
to wipe out all that still stands here unburned!

Then rise my lowered, stand up tall,
the enslaved ones, who yet now crawl.
The revolt of fallen one will soon sweep here...!