Album Review: Ceremony of Silence – Hálios (Willowtip Records)

Slovakian Blackened Death Metal band, Ceremony of Silence will release their second album, Hálios, on July 19th through Willowtip Records.

Hálios will be available on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digital formats where it builds upon the foundation laid by their debut album, Oútis, which was released back in 2019.  Hálios now delves even deeper into the band’s unique blend of brutality and atmosphere. The album is designed to radiate with suffocating intensity while additionally introducing a richer, more atmospheric dimension to the band’s sound. Despite this advancement, Ceremony of Silence look to retain plenty of the band’s signature aspects of haunting melodies with breathtaking gradations.

Unborn, all-pervading and radiant. The immutable light of the Universe, our fundamental inherent nature, and a bridge to the mythical time. “Hálios” represents a breakthrough of the sacred into the temporal world, and sets forth on an eerie journey reenacting old stories inspired by the essence of the ancient Indo-European mythology, entwined in the obscure visions and dreams.

Ceremony of Silence is N. on vocals, Viliam Pilarčík on guitars, bass and vocals and Matúš S. Ďurčík on drums. Hálios comes with all lyrics and artwork from Matúš S. Ďurčík. It’s engineered and mixed by Miroslav Spevák, produced by Miroslav Spevák and Viliam Pilarčík and is mastered by Colin Marston.

Ceremony of Silence get Hálios underway with very little silence, instead bringing a noisy and chaotic start with Primaeval Sacrifice. Fuzzy and impactful drumming, deep bellowed vocals are buried in a cacophony of carnage as we get assaulted by a very dark and blackened sound. It takes a moment to synchronise with but as you listen, the little intricacies in the riffs start to settle and you start finding the rhythm and getting a sense of the atmosphere. I really like the string bending on the guitars and how that little moment stands out against a wall of brutal drumming and vicious vocals. If there is one thing you will take a way from the start of Hálios here though, it’s that this is not for the faint of heart.

Serpent Slayer offers no reprieve either, if you are hoping for something a little lighter to refresh your palette. The drum assault continues as riffs bite at your ankles with little pinches bookending each line. The vocals are consistently deep, maybe a little monotone thus far on the album, but I really like how they are so bedded into the rest of the music. There is some seriously impressive guitarwork here too – quite progressive sounding really but while those melodic tints give moments of light, they are as quickly closed off by an avalanche of brutal black metal.

We are well in sync with Hálios now so I expect the darkness to continue washing over me, and it does but Ceremony of Silence start expanding their sound too. First with Moon Vessel, where the speed drops down a bit, for parts, and the melody from the guitars grows massively. Even with that more rhythmic, more melodic edge, you never feel safe. The threat is there and is felt through the impressive ability that Hálios are demonstrating in creating a suffocating and dangerous atmosphere even in this much more progressive song. Eternal Return then marks the half way point of the album with a short, 2 minute ish track. Aside from some seriously deep growls, the song is an instrumental with full guitars, lots of echo, plenty of bass, tapping drums and backing that sounds like the noises you would expect to come from a portal to Hell.

Light Runs Through Light shakes us back out of our hypnotised state and into an absolute feast of darkness. The drums are so good, again, at first hitting so hard but with a strong beat, then descending into a more chaotic feel. Vocals stay strong and powerful though always at the one deep and demonic tone. Bass reverberates through every note and the guitars hit with strong riffs and plenty of little pinches and bends. After a couple more expansive songs, Ceremony of Silence clearly wanted to remind us of their overall brutal approach to metal here on Hálios. The atmosphere is still there, it’s just forming part of a much angrier and aggressive song here.

We hit our penultimate track next with Perennial Incantation and no surprises for guessing it’s a heavy track but it is also a nice combination of a lot of what came before with plenty of intense and forceful music though with transitions into sections that lean more heavily on the atmospheric guitar work. Drums are killer again, and the song has a really strong and exciting flow. The way it uses the lead guitars to create a melodic line that flows you into different parts of the song is clever and there is a really neat, and very dark, solo too.

We close out Hálios with King in the Mountain and with it’s additional run time (over 7 and half minutes), we basically get all the goodness that came so far on the album, but multiplied. Heavier for longer stretches, more transitions between styles with even a deep and foreboding melodic slow down thrown in, Ceremony of Silence clearly want to leave a lasting mark. The guitars in the slow down, and backing sounds are mesmerising and, when joined by hushed growled vocals, well it’s the stuff of nightmares really. As it fades to silence, but with 2 minutes remaining, you expect it to return and it does, in some style, with an explosion of brutality, insane drumming and riffing then into a fiery and furious solo.

So as we bang our heads and raise our horns through to the end, I look back and am amazed at how quickly the album has passed as well as how hypnotic it has been. Ceremony of Silence have delivered an album in Hálios that offers extreme darkness, heavy blackened metal wrapped in a blanket of threatening atmosphere and all with a very accomplished and captivating production. This isn’t brutal in the sense of it just been a noisy attack, it is brutal in the impact it has and a lot of that comes from the way each song has been so intelligently crafted, using every instrument to maximum effect and then having those songs flow perfectly across the whole album. This is a very accomplished release from a band clearly packing huge talent.

Grab yourself a copy of Hálios from Ceremony of Silence on their Bandcamp page, here.

Hálios Links

Bandcamp – Facebook – Instagram – Spotify – Willowtip Records