Band:	Tystnaden
Album:	Sham Of Perfection
Style:	Gothenburg metal, Gothic metal
Release date:	2006
A review by:	Jeff

01. First Embrace
02. Münchausen Syndrome
03. Tystnaden
04. Metaphora
05. The Foolish Plan
06. Hamlet
07. The Joke
08. Rewards
09. The Vanishing
10. Pride vs Intellect

Tystnaden is, apparently, influenced by In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. It's probably not so wrong when you listen to some guitars riffs of the album but to be honest, I'm quite sure that the majority of the people who will listen to this album first will only have one name in their head, Lacuna Coil. You'll tell me that it is evidently really simplistic to do a comparison between these two bands just because Tystnaden has a female singer, but believe me their two universes are not so different?

"Sham Of Perfection" is not a bad album. The ten songs are correct and are an alternation of Melodic Death Metal and Gothic/Atmospheric music a la Lacuna Coil. Though, Laura De Luca has a really nice voice and the death vocals of Lorenzo Frascaroli are also extremely good too. The riffs and melodies are catchy in general but a bit easy and if you'll listen to the songs without any problems, you'll also I think, quickly forget the half of the album after the first listening. Nevertheless, the guys of Tystnaden tried to add some instruments like mandolin or violin but since that the rhythms are fast in general it's not unpleasant but not so impressive too? Actually all that is cool, but it's not enough in my opinion?

As you can already understand the problem of the album doesn't come from the performance of the musicians, from the production or even from the quality of the song that we cannot attack. But with it big lacks of originality, a lot of time I just had the feeling that I was listening to a simple uncolored "copy-paste" of X bands. The problem of Tystnaden is not that they're doing bad music, they're not doing bad music, but their first album is just unoriginal.

Come on guys, when I listen to your first album, I see a lot of potential. But I don't see a lot of personality, and something will have to be done here. "Sham Of Perfection" is not bad, the quality of the compositions is not awful really, but it really lacks of original things and I regret that the band didn't take some risks. Though, if you're still looking for bands with female singers, you can try "Sham Of Perfection", it's not a bad release but just a common one?