Van Canto – Break the Silence (2011)

Metal’s most original band in the last few years returns with yet another A Capella Power Metal release that will rattle your speakers since track one. “Break the Silence” marks the band’s fourth full-length album and also features a bit of a shift into more a ‘melodic’ sound. However, we are still treated to 40+ minutes of pure vocal brilliance and amazing melodic catchiness.

Opening with “If I Die in Battle”, the vocal powers of Philip Dennis Schunke and Inga Scharf lead the way over the amazing ‘vocal instruments’ that back them. In a ‘slower’ and more melodic way we have plenty of mmmmm’s that keep an epic feeling to the song and give it a darker edge. “The Seller of Souls” delivers a more ‘traditional’ Van Canto sound and leads the way for some powerful vocal bass line and some excellent vocal guitar sections. With a nice Power Metal feeling this song has nice choir sections and a very perky pace.

In our promo, “Primo Victoria” (Sabaton cover) follows with the guest appearance of Joakim Brodén. In our opinion this is an EXCELLENT rendition of an already epic song and the band gives it an extra level of awesomeness because of their vocal powers. “Dangers in my Head” and “Black Wings of Hate” go back to a more somber sound but still featuring some traditional Van Canto bass and guitar sections. At this point we did get a little impression that the band’s unique style was also working against them. Since both songs are very similar we kind of found ourselves drifting into a ‘didn’t we just hear this?’ trance. Luckily the band’s cover of Alice Cooper’s “Bed of Nails” song followed this little rough patch and delivered exactly what we needed from this band.

The folkish/ballad-esque “Spelled in Waters” shows a different side of the band and nicely provides some breathing room. The Power Metal anthem “Neuer Wind” immediately pick-up the spirits of this release and delivers a powerful track that was much needed in a release featuring a lot of somber ones. Closing with “Master of the Wind”, the band tries to provide a nice Manowar tribute, but many of the band’s actual fans are not completely digging this track, and for us this is just another slow and pretty dull song in this release.

While we still love Van Canto, this release falls short in a few areas and delivers a few weak songs that bring the whole level of this album down. Don’t get us wrong, there are still GREAT songs in this album, but as a whole we feel that some of them are very disconnected and that the band’s ‘gimmick’ might be getting old or not too useful for somber and slow songs. If you like the band and don’t mind skipping a few tracks, you will not regret giving “Break the Silence” a try.

Release: September 27th, 2011

Country: Germany