THE BEAST

Silenced Minstrel - Volume 5 - Reviewed By Occult Black Metal Zine ! Check it out here at this link: http://occultblackmetalzine.blogspot.com/

Silenced  Minstrel  are  a  solo  project  from  Malaysia  that  has  been  featured   before  in  this  zine  and  on this  recording  plays  a  satanic  form  of  black  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  his  self  released   2020 album  ''Volume  5".

 A  very  dark  and  heavy  sound  starts  off  the  album  while  all  of  the  drum  beats  are  also  programmed  while  the  solos  and  leads  are  also  done  in  a  very  melodic  style .  The  vocals  are  done  in  a  shouting  style  that  is  more  rooted  in  the  first  wave  era  and  when  the  music   speeds  up  a  great  amount   of  blast   beats  can  be  heard.

 Throughout  the  recording  you  can  also  hear  a  great  mixture   of  slow,  mid  paced  and  fast  parts  while  the  tremolo  picking  also  gives  the  songs  more  of  a  raw  feeling.  When  guitar  solos  and  leads  are  utilized  they  are  also  done  in  an  old  school  style  along  with  one  track  also  introducing  clean   playing  onto  the  recording.

 The  songs  also  add  in  a  decent  amount   of  second  wave  influences   as  well   as  being   modern  at  the  same  time  along  with  one  track  also  adding  in  a  brief  use  of  whispered  vocals,  growls  can  also  be  heard  at  times  and  the  album  closes  with  an  orchestra   orientated   instrumental.  The  production  sounds  very  raw  and  old  school  while  the  lyrics  cover   Satanism,  Occultism  and  Darkness themes.

 In  my  opinion   this   is   another   great   sounding  album  from  Silenced  Minstrel  and  if  you  are  a  fan  of  old  school  satanic  black   metal ,  you should   check   out  this   recording .  RECOMMENDED TRACKS  INCLUDE  "'Enlightened  Beasts'  ''Descend  Into  Madness''  ''Canto Diablo 4 - Ballad  For  Satan''  and  ''Dirge  Of  The  Eternal  Winter''.  8  out   of  10.

BIOGRAPHY

Silenced Minstrel (age 44 years, born Saiful Nizam Shukor, 28 th March 1976) was a full time singer, songwriter musician from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Been playing music since 1991 he co-founded HALUN, a gothic black metal band back in 1996, produced several demos, one EP and one LP before the badly deformed monstrosity was laid to rest in 2015. Writing and producing mostly in his bedroom studio nicknamed “Sky Panacea Enterprise” he spent the entire 2016 gathering writing and recording materials for his debut album “Volume 1” choosing to name it as such as to not make it sounds too rockstar-ish. 

“Volume 1” is a combination of melodic gothic stuff mixed with thrash, death and doom metal riffs and black metal atmosphere, utilizing the most basic of guitar effects, cheap keyboards/ synthesizers and MIDI orchestra throughout the entire album to produce something that he’d always wanted to do: anything that didn’t sound like his former band! The album is completed in September but it be long after the production of the second album was underway when that album graced the scene...

The second album “Volume 2” saw some maturity in his songwriting, the MIDI orchestra part ditched altogether and it also saw a fair amount of rough edges deliberately highlighted in the mix, and a lot more gothic atmosphere throughout than before especially in the lyrics department, where he wrote songs about the occult, immortality, vampirism and forbidden love between the mortal and the damned, also some cryptic poetic inclinations thrown to the mix just for the heck of it.

The third album “Volume 3” saw him moving ever closer towards a more melodic black metal sound than the old one, this time the long ditched MIDI orchestra element restored along with some double-layered bass guitar tracks and even gloomier atmosphere than before, reflecting the state of his mind, body, spirit and environment that he’s at during that period of time; with traces of anger, hatred, betrayal and vengeance gracing every song in the album (he fully recovered from his decade long clinical depression that same year).

The fourth album “Volume 4” saw him disposing of all the gothic melodic stuff and straight into just vocals guitars bass and drums, trying to go as dry and as harsh as he can, tackling on darker themes like deviant spirituality, Satanism, atheism, philosophy and dark fantasy. Fast tempo is the name of the game; the drums gained more prominence and absolutely no melodic stuff present on this album.

The fifth album “Volume 5” saw the further development of sound and direction from the previous album, adding also an orchestral style instrumental black metal song as the last track of the album, a song that hearkens back to his old days in HALUN.

The artist is currently occupied promoting his new album, gathering materials for the sixth album and also working on his other band “Shadowed Grace” playing New Age Scifi Fantasy Instrumental Synthesizer music. Silenced Minstrel is unsigned and is looking for exposure, a recording contract and developing fanbases all across the globe.

DISCOGRAPHY:

Volume 1 (2017)
1 Chaos, Revisited
2 I Remember…Insanity
3 Black Hearted Sufi
4 Twilight Catharsis
5 Misery, Revisited
6 Enemy Within Me…
7 Johnny Demonic
8 13 th May 69 (Instrumental)

Volume 2 (2018)

1 Into The Void
2 Morbid Endings I Wished For Them
3 I Shall Miss Quintessa
4 (Blood Red Flowers) Bleeding Moon
5 Entangled In Thorns
6 Another Black Year
7 Dark Deceptions
8 Another Black Year (Instrumental)

Volume 3 (2019)

1 Valedictory Sigh
2 Canto Diablo 1 – Demonic Epiphany
3 In Memoriam (Undertaker’s Lament)
4 In Memoriam (I Will Keep On Going)
5 Laying Down The Wreaths
6 Merentap Tirai Senja
7 Incantations In Tongues
8 Valedictory Sigh (Instrumental)

Volume 4 (2020)

1 The Black Journal Of Alkrun-Nar
2 The Dark Almighty
3 The Silenced Minstrel
4 Mortifications Of The Flesh
5 Godkiller (Forever Burning Me)
6 Dark Brotherhood Of The Mind-Benders
7 Laments From A Forgotten Age
8 The Final Journey
9 Canto Diablo 2 – Necrotic Mantras
10 Quod Damnum Omnis Spes

Volume 5 (2020)

1 Unenlightened Beasts
2 Twilight Of Religion
3 Hell On Earth
4 Descent Into Madness
5 Canto Diablo 3 – Plagued By The Future
6 Canto Diablo 4 – Ballad For Satan
7 Ex Lucis Tenebris
8 Night Hunt Of The Unseelie
9 Dirge Of The Eternal Winter
10 Regina Of The Blessed Moon (Instrumental)

Band: Silenced Minstrel
Formed: 2016
Band member (s):
Silenced Minstrel – All instruments, vocals, sound engineer, programmer, producer
Genre: Death/Black/Gothic Metal
Country: Malaysia
Label: Unsigned

BAND AND ALBUM LINKS:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/SilencedMinstrel

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SilencedMinstr1  

Bandcamp: https://silencedminstrel.bandcamp.com/album/volume-5  

Soundcloud:  https://soundcloud.com/saifulnizam_shukor

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/artist/3bzBoq26KOir3aZ9i2ObcE

ITunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/1442050547

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqCp_xPAXg-9bljJguBa3hQ?view_as=subscriber

CDBaby/Hearnow:  https://silencedminstrel@hearnow.com