The wait for a second album is over for Silver Knife.
Already the progenitor of a first opus in 2020 and an EP in 2022, the project featuring D. (Déhà, Acathexis, SLOW, Wolvennest, Maladie…), P. (Business for Satan), S. (Hypothermia, Häxenzijrkell, Oerheks), N. (Laster, Vuur & Zijde) and Moanne de Kroon (Deadspeak) unveils Silver Knife in 2025 in collaboration with Amor Fati Productions.
After a bass slide, Sliver welcomes us with his steamy but relatively soothing riffs, from which eventually emerge the terrifying howls that haunt the premises and gradually chill our blood. Occasionally pausing for a moment, the track speeds along with an ever more soaring, melodic sound, before giving way to Restless Blight, which takes a slightly more aggressive approach while developing a melancholic touch and a more jerky bass. The band plays on this contrast between instruments to create truly heavy guitars, even during the acceleration where the cries become heart-rending, but their lament comes to an end with Techne, which immediately takes over with a new swarm of tortured vociferations and an equally hazy rhythm. A second voice enters the cloud, eventually developing more Old School and menacing touches, while the lead vocal veers totally towards DSBM and its blatant despair, before letting Transfiguration weave an interesting contrast with a bass/drum duo that offers us a rather surprising and very catchy passage. The rhythms set themselves ablaze once again, plunging us back into the purest darkness until we reach Reticent Paroxysm, which immediately adopts very similar tonalities that can be summed up as a tenebrous, dissonant surge that is as painful as it is fascinating, but which ends up getting lost in nothingness quite quickly. This is followed by Triumph in Tragedy, the last, very long composition in which we easily lose ourselves contemplating its riffs imbued with an intense, communicative sadness, and despite the aerial pause, the dark ocean resumes its rights, flooding the space until it finally falls silent.
Playing with darkness seems to be child’s play for Silver Knife, who handle melancholy and sadness with disconcerting ease. Every moment of Silver Knife is dedicated to grief and heartbreak.
95/100