Through Silence have just supported Story of the Year – on the basis of ‘Renaissance’ it’s not too hard to see why. TS, a UK mob who play polished post-hardcore with extra sheen, are a perfect foil for their US peers, a band who are selling more and more records as weeks progress (and are up to the one million mark I believe). To be fair there’s very little difference between the two bands, their nationality aside, so if you like SotY then you will probably like TS more as this record is very impressive for what it is. Original it ain’t, but polished, slick and massive-sounding it certainly is.
For me, however, it’s just more of the same stuff that’s being churned out Stateside, albeit a very good version. This is almost certainly Deck Cheese’s flashiest release yet; the production is huge and very polished and the vocals are very US-sounding. With a roster that contains Sick on the Bus, Through Silence stand out a mile. But I can see why they’ve been snapped up to the label; ‘For The Memories’ has a huge chorus that could easily infest Scuzz or The Lock Up, while ‘Perfect White’ and ‘The Symphony’ sound absolutely massive, with crunching guitars and huge vocal melodies. And when I say huge, for a UK band, this has to be amongst the best sounding records I have ever heard – whatever John Mitchell is using at Outhouse Studios is easily on a par with the US super producers.
Through Silence are very, very good at what they do, but sadly it’s no different to hundreds of other bands that play the same kind of music. With money thrown at them Through Silence could go on to sell hundreds of thousands of records, because this is the kind of stuff that is being lapped up by millions of people across the pond, but the sad fact is that UK audiences don’t want to see UK bands playing this kind of stuff, because the mainstream magazines already hype the US bands of a similar ilk. Compare this to Story of the Year’s record and ‘Renaissance’ wins – but I doubt they’ll shift a twentieth of the records the St Louis mob have done. It’s a real shame, but that’s the fucked up music industry for you…
www.throughsilence.com
Deck Cheese Records
Paul
