Review: In Silentio Noctis - “Through Fragments of Christianity” (2010)
Finland’s In Silentio Noctis’s debut album Through Fragments of Christianity is an interesting take on the usual female-fronted metal sound. The typical symphonic metal elements and operatic, melodic female vocals are of course present, but here they are combined with aggressive black metal musicianship to create something much heavier and more complex than fans of this genre are used to. Whether it works or not probably depends on your affinity for female singers, but In Silentio Noctis definitely deserves credit for trying to carve their own path.
Musically, In Silentio Noctis mixes a lot of stuff into this album. There are plenty of raging, melodic black metal sections, but also some well-executed keyboard and piano interludes as well as the occasional gothic metal chugging riffs. The band adds a lot of choral background singing, and the use of keyboards adds to the atmosphere as well. In Silentio Noctis also does a pretty good job with tempo changes and dynamic contrast. Overall, the band is pretty tight musically.
The one constant throughout the album is the singing of vocalist Armi Päivinen. She has a decent, mid-range voice, which reminds me somewhat of Elis’s old singer Sabine Dünser. Armi’s voice isn’t particularly emotive, and melodically she doesn’t do anything that is particularly memorable or catchy, so the vocal aspect of the band unfortunately becomes somewhat dull as the album progresses.
I think the combination of female vocals with a more aggressive metal sound is an interesting one, but it doesn’t quite work here for a couple reasons. First, Armi’s vocal performance just isn’t emotive or dynamic enough to really capture my attention. More importantly though, the dark and menacing atmosphere that the black metal aspect aims to create isn’t really compatible with the more light-hearted, epic vibe that the keyboards and vocals deliver. Nevertheless, if you’re really into female-fronted metal, In Silentio Noctis could definitely be appealing as an alternative to most of the other gothic metal bands out there.
