Ceremony of Silence - Hálios

Ceremony of Silence is a blackened death metal band from Slovakia who formed in 2015.  “Hálios,” is their second full-length album.

Ceremony of Silence plays a form of extremity that, while definitely aggressive, has an unique atmosphere ...it sort of creeps into you and flows like a miasma rather than directly assaulting the senses.  “Hálios,” ticks off all the boxes of every element I want in my blackened death concoctions but does so in an atmospheric and off the beaten path way to the point where the album sounds different than a lot of other bands of this style.

It is more nightmarish and creepy with its brutality than pulverizing.  Rather than listening to this and saying, “Wow, this is destructive,” I’m saying, “This is a raw, maddening, form of arcane mysterium.”

Balance is key to this album.  Every instrument is expertly mixed in, nothing over takes the others and they all get equal representation.  This goes a long way in making the album as atmospheric as it is.  The resulting ‘wall of sound’ lends the album a full, encompassing sound: listening to it truly feels like I’ve been transported to another world.  But it isn’t an alien world.  It’s a world that is vaguely familiar but it’s off kilter…everything feels different. 

And that’s a good way to look at the album. Yes, it is blackened death. Yes, I have heard a million bands in this style.  So it’s familiar….but, at the same time, it is different enough to make me question the landscape, to lose my bearings of confidence. 

The album opens with “Primaeval Sacrifice,” and it’s dissonant leanings that, paired with the intense and dense drumming, makes the atmosphere surreal as hell.  Serpentine riffs coil around the ghastly vocals, tightening their grip as the bass and drums push the song to a portal of blackened void.

One of my favorite songs on the album is “Moon Vessel.” Its slower pace is boosted by a steady beat, even as the song grows more out there and profane as the second pass.  The drums compliment the riffs and vocals, hitting hard at the height of urgency.  A surprise comes in the form of clean instrumentation at the 3:25 mark, striping the essence of the song's sound down to an exposed nerve within the music.  

“Light Runs Through Light,” is one of the more brutal songs, the vocals in particular being very abrasive.  But the same unnerving approach to the music keeps the theme and direction of the album in tact, offering the song a path that teeters in and out of insanity. This song best combines their heavier and atmospheric aspects.

The final song, “King In The Mountain,” opens with freight train riffs break way to brief, slightly quieter moments that makes the first opening moments sound like falling down a rabbit hole.  The middle part slows to a crawl for one of the best moments on the album.  After a slow avalanche of riffs, deep, clean tones pull the song into deep caverns.  The death growls keep going on, an primordial echo in the shadows.

Ceremony of Silence’s “Hálios,” is a ultra impressive album that sounds like it is from a alternate dimension of an ancient past but is forward thinking enough to help push the genre into the future.