My Silent Wake — Damnatio Memoriae

Formed by Ian Arkley in May of 2005, My Silent Wake were born of the remnants of Ashen Mortality. The band have often been associated with the ‘Christian Metal’ scene due to Arkley’s previous work with Seventh Angel, however My Silent Wake choose to deal with faith, not as a product of one religion but as a universal issue affecting those of all faiths. Damnatio Memoriae, their 8th full length release was originally released in 2015, however this reissue on Minotauro Records adds 3 alternative versions of tracks already featured on the album.

Of Fury gets things underway, an understated opening slowly brings the album to life, before a heavy doom riff takes hold. What sounds at first like a traditional doom metal record quickly shows its true colours when the vocals are introduced. They are growled, almost death metal in style, however the track retains a melody more reminiscent of traditional metal or classic doom. Never as extreme as many of their contemporaries, it sits neatly in the space between classic doom and the death n roll of bands like Entombed. Highwire is up next and picks the pace up somewhat, still packed with melody, this track moves away from the doomy beginnings of the opener, the vocals slide further into death metal territory and the track feels a bit pedestrian at times. Now it Destroys begins with some heavy groove riffing, there is a definite My Dying Bride influence that plays out throughout the track.

Black Oil begins with some psychedelic sounding guitars, this represents a really interesting shift in the band’s sound, psychedelic doom metal with clean vocals. The track plods along with no real riffs, however it represents something interesting and a little different. It is spacey and mellow for the first 4.30 before the more traditional death doom vocals and riffs are introduced. This for me represents one of the more interesting moments on the album. And So It Comes To An End is up next, this is more traditional death/doom stuff with more than a nod to those giants of the genre MDB and Paradise Lost. The Innocent is a melodic up-tempo number featuring some fine lead guitar work. Massed vocals bring a different vibe to the overall sound, some of the riffing reminds me of Amon Amarth, but of course this is not a bad thing as they are pretty much one of the finest melodic death metal bands around at the moment. The epic, The Empty Unknown is up next and provides 13 minutes of classic doom/ death. Slow, crushingly heavy riffs and guttural vocals are the order of the day during the first half of the song, however there is a Jurassic shift around the 6 minute mark where we head back into psychedelic doom territory for a few minutes, coupled with some nice ambient soundscapes, before returning to the heavier death/doom of its beginnings. The final track, Chaos Enfolds Me works to represent the album in micro, almost as if they throw everything in their arsenal at this final track, however it works really well. This is one of my favourite tracks on the album.

The bonus tracks just add extra keyboards to the mix, sadly they don’t really make a huge difference to the sound so are perhaps nothing more than of slight interest to the general layman, although to fans of the band they are perhaps of greater interest.

Overall the album is an interesting amalgamation of death/doom, not everything works and it is at times a little pedestrian, however when they do something a little out of their comfort zone there is real promise. The more psychedelic moments are a pleasure to hear and they really do lift the album out of the typical MDB comparisons. Recommended for fans of the aforementioned My Dying Bride, but also Tiamat and Paradise Lost, however there is more to be mined from this one, and I’d love to see what they could do if they were to try something that eschews the death metal influences in favour of the more psychedelic elements.