AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SILVERN — “STARDUST SERMONS”

(written by Islander)

The creation of underground metal is a global phenomenon, more extensive and varied in some countries than in others but still ubiquitous. Ukraine is one nation with an extensive and fairly multi-faceted history in the field, yet even when considering the music that’s currently being generated, the first thought that comes to most of us now is… war.

Now more than 30 months after Russia’s unprovoked invasion, the conflict, which the aggressors thought would end quickly, has settled into a grinding devastation with no end in sight, still peppered with almost weekly atrocities inflicted on non-combatants; this week, for example, brought Russian ballistic missiles that killed more than 50 people and wounded almost 30 others in Poltava, followed just yesterday by a nighttime missile and drone attack on Lviv that killed 7 and injured more than 50.

Life goes on, of course, even under the grim shadow of a war that will reach its thousandth day in November, and part of that life is the making of music, a visible way of defiantly demonstrating that life does indeed go on despite a tyrant’s determined effort to grind it into bleakness and despair.

The Ukrainian black metal band Silvern released their first single, “Lorn“, on February 22, 2022, two days before Putin’s invasion. It was to be the precursor to an album, but of course the war insisted on a hiatus. Silvern‘s next single, “Still Higher Than Saviour’s Star“, wasn’t released until 15 months later. But Silvern did complete the album, recording and mixing it themselves, and it will be released on September 6th of this year by Vendetta Records.

The album’s name is Stardust Sermons. That first single “Lorn” opens the album, and that second one “Still Higher Than Saviour’s Star” ends it. From beginning to end it conceptually traces the journey of a faceless character, a journey described as follows:

The album explores how the character’s perception of reality shifts through various encounters and challenges. It highlights the duality of human belief, showing that not everything black is truly black, and not everything white is truly white. The album delves into humanity’s need for belief and the unknown mysteries of life, capturing interactions with people, nature, religion, science, and the cosmos.

As it happens, we premiered both of those singles, describing the first one as “an electrifying yet distressing experience” and the second as “emotionally wrenching and viscerally propulsive”, and now we’re presenting the album in full.

Of course, it doesn’t take the frightful abominations of war to create the kind of emotional turbulence and jarring realizations described in the journey of Stardust Sermons. It seems likely that Silvern had this journey in mind, or at least something like it, even before their country was assaulted, but it seems at least equally likely that the changed conditions of life in Ukraine intensified the music’s renditions of pain and fraught realizations of a need to search “higher than a saviour’s star” for salvation.

As for how Silvern create the journey, they come armed with piercing yet also raw and ravaging riffage, finding a balance between tones of scarring abrasiveness, bell-like ringing, and incendiary searing, as well as rhythms that punch hard and vocals that tear themselves apart. The mix is even enough that you can pick out all the ingredients, including a prominent bass, and how they all trade off and work together.

The drumming ranges from skull-popping shots to blast-beat torrents, from avalanche upheavals to grim stalking cadences and vibrant leaps and bounds. The riffing ranges far and wide too, gouging and clawing in dissonant timbres but also creating tidal waves of sweeping and sparkling intensity, and groaning chords of dismal downfall.

The songs prove to be constantly dynamic and elaborate — speeding and slowing, jolting and blazing, falling into lonely grief but also sometimes propelled to even higher altitudes of unsettling intensity by blistering and delirious guitar solos or strange and hallucinatory arpeggios. Even the vocals vary, snarling and growling and howling in a fury, but also seemingly choking on disgust.

Most notably, the songs’ emotional qualities also change, but the array of them is almost perpetually dark, encompassing sensations of degradation, desperation, dementia, and raging defiance. However, as the journey nears its end, you’ll even encounter episodes of wonder and beauty — though they don’t last.

To get to these places, Silvern explore many of the sub-genres of black metal but they aren’t completely wedded to black metal at all. Yet it’s probably better to let you pick out the stylistic divergences when you listen than for me to grasp at listing them. Maybe it’s enough to suggest that “avant-garde black metal” might be the most suitable genre description for Silvern‘s music, simply because it’s so difficult to classify with any other succinct label.

The journey doesn’t have a happy ending. Whatever conclusions the album’s nameless character reaches in finding that nothing is all black or all white, they don’t seem to bring an end to turmoil and torment, nor any comfort; easy answers might have been rejected, but the searching seems fated to continue. Listen to “Still Higher Than Saviour’s Star” and tell me if you disagree.

Whatever interpretations you might come to, I do urge you to listen from beginning to end, because the album’s achievements are unusually impressive, revealing a songcraft that’s intricate and multi-faceted, but emotionally powerful through and through, and likely to turn lots of heads if those heads will just pay attention.

Vendetta will release Stardust Sermons on LP vinyl, CD, and digital formats. For info on how to acquire it, keep an eye on the locations linked below.

VENDETTA:
https://vendetta-records.com/
https://vendetta-records.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/vendettacult/

SILVERN:
https://www.youtube.com/@silvern9347
https://www.facebook.com/silvern.band
https://www.instagram.com/silvern_band/
https://silvern.bandcamp.com/