Silence Lies Fear is a middle eastern melodic death metal band that have only released two albums so far. This is of course their second, sophomore album. The way they structure their songs is very reminiscent of bands like Amon Amarth, Kalmah, At The Gates and many others that have more repetitive riff structures. It also includes the big epic sounds more reminiscent to alot of Finnish melodic death metal bands.
Although I'm not entirely sure, Future: The Return seems to be a concept album of a sort, the album title just gives me that idea. The instrumentation is fantastic and amped up to a fair extent as well. The vocals are very similar to melodic death metal bands like Soilwork and Arch Enemy except there's no cleans from the main vocalist and it sounds less like snarls as well, but it fits the atmosphere of the music as well. I also like the album cover, it shows off what I think are alien creatures but on a rocky mountain of some sort and gives me some Rush vibes with that as well, at least if you're going to consider the Volumes album, their last album of the 70s. There are two different guitarists here and each have slight difference between them. The leads provide some of the solos and having the melodic layer of the two whereas the rhythm guitarist has that extra bite to not make it sound too melodic. The drums, while aren't incredibly technical, are pretty great and can change his drum pattern whenever he feels he needs to. Although the drums are quite compared to everyone else, I have a feeling that was intentional since somewhere in the beginning and are still highly audible anyways. The vocalist's style of harsh vocals here comes in two forms, the Kalmah inspired vocals and the more guttural styled ones, although there isn't much of a difference between the two if you ask me. With an add bonus, his lyrics are pretty easy to understand if you listen carefully and are pretty meaningful as well, as one might imagine. There are 11 tracks in this album with a total of about 45 minutes of music. Most of the songs are in the 3-4 minute range with the exception of a six minute track towards the end. Each of these tracks are carefully crafted and carefully written like one big masterpiece. You may think I'm exaggerating here, but listen to the album first and then maybe you'll see. As for my favorites, The Divide and Silence, they are back to back and provide some great riffs that even bands like Machine Head or Opeth might be proud of, as with the rest of the album. I almost forgot, the bass, while being almost inaudible to me, does add more of a crunch and bite that the rhythm guitar already provides. Trust me when I say, this is an underrated gem that you do not want to miss.
I give this a 9.5/10. I am the Grim Reaper, signing off.