Metal Storm logo
Membrane - Deathly Silence review



Reviewer:
7.8

7 users:
6.71
Band: Membrane
Album: Deathly Silence
Style: Post-metal, Noise rock, Sludge metal
Release date: January 08, 2025
A review by: musclassia


01. Raise
02. Fire And Fear
03. Too Late
04. Deathly Silence
05. The Soft Whispers
06. Earth

For more than 20 years, Membrane ‘has never stopped looking for a semblance of light in the depths of our darkest emotions.’ With Deathly Silence, they once more summon faint rays of light within an overarching bleakness.

This is the sixth full album from the French group, and their first with guitarist Hugo Perestrelo; the group expanded to a four-piece around 2020, but were only able to record one album with Mathieu Roszak before his unfortunate passing. Deathly Silence is dedicated to his memory, but also represents a new beginning. The band’s current style is one that falls into genres such as post-metal and sludge metal, but the band have reached this destination from a past featuring noise rock and post-hardcore, and hints of those sounds remain in the present day.

Now, noise rock and sludge metal are not alien to one another; the likes of KEN Mode, Chat Pile and Kowloon Walled City have a foot (or at least a toe) in each kingdom. It’s also not unnatural for such sounds to be taken in a post-metal direction, as bands such as Abraham have previously demonstrated. As such, there’s nothing overly unusual about Membrane’s sound on Deathly Silence, and the brooding, mid-tempo trudging that dominates its soundscapes is recognizable to fans of acts such as Gloson and early Erdve.

That mid-tempo trudging typically takes a bleak and mean form, with the likes of “Raise” and “Earth” hitting listeners with menacing, occasionally dissonance-tinged riffs propelled by dynamic and potent percussion. The vocals flicker between full-throated harsh roars and grim semi-spoken delivery reflective of Membrane’s noise rock heritage. These tracks are satisfying in their darkness and power, but they spend of their time at louder volumes. In contrast, longer cuts such as “The Soft Whispers” and the title track add in more sustained periods of muted downtime and elongated post-metal builds, and in doing so adeptly expand the record’s dynamic and emotional range; the punishing weight of the closing riffs and minutes of “The Soft Whispers” are potentiated by the patience required to reach that point due to the preceding gradual crescendo.

However, it is two songs in particularly that offer the rays of light alluded to at the beginning, and perhaps uncoincidentally, they have turned out to be my highlights on Deathly Silence. “Fire And Fear” doesn’t diminish its density, but from the off, there’s a subtle melodic sadness to its first main riff. Later on, a rolling mid-tempo groove in the mid-section is accentuated by a simple yet effective ‘panic siren’ lead guitar motif (highlighting the benefits of having two guitarists). “Too Late” is perhaps more overt with its melodicism, with simple yet resonant tremolo lines earlier on, and melancholic clean guitar in its minimalist closing minutes that nicely scratches an early Cult Of Luna itch.

On the whole, Deathly Silence is a concise record with solid range and moving atmospheres. While it doesn’t necessarily hit any outstanding peaks, there’s a consistent level of satisfaction throughout, with a handful of riffs that particularly hit the spot. Other albums may likely top it in the months to come, but this is a very respectable early entry into post-metal in 2025.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 6
Production: 8





Written on 27.01.2025 by Hey chief let's talk why not


Comments

Comments: 1   Visited by: 35 users
29.01.2025 - 18:09
Rating: 7
AndyMetalFreak
A Nice Guy
Contributor
I can't say I'm that familiar with this band but this is a pretty solid sludgey post-metal release. It has some impressive intensifying build-ups and a powerful crushing tone. It sounds like a combination of Cult Of Luna and Morne to me.
Loading...

Hits total: 1206 | This month: 498