At the beginning of this year, Silent Planet were yet another unsigned band; but as the band released their EP Lastsleep whilst writing their full-length, they caught the attention of Solid State Records. Fast forward a few months later, Silent Planet have unleashed their debut album The Night God Slept – an announcement of their arrival to the melodic metalcore world.
Musically The Night God Slept is great – plenty of riffs, full of energy and delivered in aggression – but what sells the album is the fact that it goes much deeper than that. The thematic album does not present the usual mediocre lyrics, but rather it functions as a way to tell the tales of history’s most horrible moments through the eyes of women. Vocalist Garrett Russell explains the album’s direction: “We see a lot of cultural misogyny in music, certainly in heavy music. Women in heavy music are caught in a binary – they are either written as a ‘good’ moral, ideal woman or a ‘bad’ sinful, tempting woman – but almost never written from their own perspective. What links all of the women in our songs is that they ultimately have to make difficult decisions under the systemic oppression of their coercive ruling forces.”
The strongest selling point of The Night God Slept is the fact that it makes you take a step back and open your eyes. Touching on heavy topics such as the sex trafficking crisis in America in ‘XX (City Grave)’ and the Hiroshima bombing in ‘Darkstrand (Hibakusha)’; their messages are delivered in a bundle of fury, emphasising the struggles of the tracks’ protagonists. Sure, we’re enjoying the frantic, mosh pit inducing instrumentals; but we’re an even bigger fan of the album’s emotional depth. Silent Planet are onto something special here.
