Album Review: Aeolian – Silent Witness (Snow Wave Records)

From the sunny island of Mallorca, Spain, this environmentally oriented melodic death metal group are releasing their debut album. Aeolian mix their blackened death metal with some death thrash and folk elements. Inspired by the beautiful nature on their home island, their lyrics address the fears of conserving natural diversity and the threat humans as a species pose to the habitat.

Silent Witness will be released on September 12th 2018 via Snow Wave Records.

With an awesome sounding chunky drum beat and electrifying riff, Aeolian get Silent Witness off to a strong start. The death metal fervour is offset by some really solid melodic elements. Immensity is everything good about melodic death metal, The End of Ice’s powerful use of playful folk rhythm steps things up before Chimera brings vicious drum beats and eager sounding vocals to the forefront.

A trio of early tracks that make a hell of a dent. Exciting and interesting, the perfect combination. You’ll know by this stage if Aeolian are for you and it would be something of a surprise if any metal fan fails to find something they enjoy in one of the tracks.

Still, if you need more convincing then My Stripes in Sadness is more then happy to oblige. A chasm of guitar groove played at varying tempos, it’s a beast of a track that revels in the chaos it creates. Then the introduction of more folk melody near the half way point takes things in a new direction.

The superiority of the riffs and drums continues into the heart-warming and feel-good heaviness of Return of the Wolf King, a good shout for the best track on the album. It’s then followed by a trio of tracks that take this from being a great album to being an unbelievably great album. Aeolian make it all sound so easy.

Silent Witness is like a shot of adrenaline. It knocks you out of your stupor with high energy death metal while also soothing the soul with folk-infused melody. An incredibly great album.

Aeolian – Silent Witness Full Track Listing:

1. Immensity
2. The End of Ice
3. Chimera
4. My Stripes in Sadness
5. Return of the Wolf King
6. Going to Extinction
7. Elysium
8. Wardens of the Sea
9. The Awakening
10. Black Storm
11. Witness

You can order the album now via Snow Wave Records here and find out more about Aeolian via their website, Facebook Page, Twitter and Instagram. You can also check out their videos over on YouTube.