TOWARDS THE SILENCE

"Towards the Silence" finds Garden Wall following and reinforcing the psyche-metal trend that they have been explicitly pursuing since their "Chimica" album, subtly announced in their third effort "The Seduction of Madness". Once again we meet this half sinister, half neurotic mixture of prog metal, thrash, doom, contemporary King Crimson inspired sonic power, jazz-rock with psychedelic tendencies and experimental madness a-la Mr. Bungle-meets-RIO. The obscure magic and abstruse tension that the album's repertoire displays all along the way is preceded by a beautiful brief acoustic guitar/stick duet 'Please Wait. Forgetting.', after which 'Caesura' emerges as a storm of madness and schizophrenia: there are some calm interludes that mostly serve as a slower demonstration of the same inner discomfort. Anger also rules supreme in 'Luna': this song is not as bright as the moon, but dark as the veil of night that spreads around it. The alternation of explicit strong passages and calmer ones is also used for good effect here. The incandescent sounds that come from the dual guitars and Saravalle's tortured singing shouldn't distract from the fact that the rhythm section manages to provide a solid foundation of precision among the constant mood shifts and complex patterns. 'Oxymoron' starts very Crimsonian, but it won't be long before a wildest thrash metallic "Sturm und Drang" to bring some more of the band's reckless disturbing musical vision. The 10 ½ minute long 'Bottom' contains well-crafted post rock-oriented passages with jazzy leanings intertwined with the usual metal thing that ultimately erupts and rises the temperature (again.). '4' pretty much offers a recapitulation of the ambiences comprised in the previous 4 tracks, providing a more pronounced Crimsonian flavor to the mix - for this one, Saravalle's singing sounds like a hybrid of Belew and Stratos. The jazzy passages include some Metheny-like leads. This track, together with tracks 2 and 3, fills the most emblematic part of the album. 'Inadeguato' is the closest to funky that Garden Wall can get under the artistic circumstances that frame the album's line of work. 'Tome' (the original title is written in Greek script) reiterates somewhat the funky ingredient, but again, the metallic neurosis emerges to bring obscurity and oppression, in communion with some eerie post rock passages. 'Cursed Nature' brings some Holdsworth-inspired energetic jazz-rock ornaments among the metallic dementia. 'Der Stellen Entgegen' closes down the album with a 3-minute soundscape on guitar-synth, seasoned with soft piano flourishes: an unexpected breeze of introspection after the long turmoil. "Towards the Silence" is a very weird album, indeed, located in a limbo between the perpetual storm of radical metal and the complexity of avant-prog, difficult enough to challenge the criteria of metal and prog lovers. I love it and regard it as excellent: the guys in Garden Wall have made a clear statement about how they see themselves as creators and performers.