Released By: AFM Records
Release Date: Out Now!!
Genre: Power Metal
Links: http://hibria.com/pt/
Line Up:
Iuri Sanson – Vocals
Abel Camargo – Guitar
Renato Osorio – Guitar
Benhur Lima – Bass
Eduardo Baldo – Drums
Tracklist:
1. Silent Revenge
2. Lonely Fight
3. Deadly Vengeance
4. Walking To Death
5. Silence Will Make You Suffer
6. Shall I Keep On Burning
7. The Place That You Belong
8. The Scream Of An Angel
9. The Way It Is
Brazilian power metal band Hibria made quite the strong impression with their debut Defying The Rules, a mix of classic power metal and speed metal which showcased some extremely strong technical musicianship, and introduced a band with a ton of promise. Unfortunately, while their next two releases The Skull Collectors and Blind Ride were each enjoyable in their own right, they never seemed to match the energy of their debut. The latter in particular seemed to be moving the band into a more modern, more aggressive direction with their music, and while it was still entertaining, it felt a little oversimplified in spots. So while I was looking forward to their fourth and latest full length release, Silent Revenge, I didn’t have the highest of expectations. Well, I still don’t know if the band can ever recapture the magic of their debut, but after several listens I can safely say this is their strongest and most consistent release since then.
I was interested to see how the band would progress with this album, as they seemed to be moving further away from their classic power metal sound with each album, and into a more modern sound, but if anything I’d say Silent Revenge is a nice mix of both styles, as it still has that edge to it that Blind Ride had, but it also has a throwback feel at points, and perhaps that helps to make it much more enjoyable for me. For newcomers to the band, they play a high energy guitar driven brand of power metal, with a focus on strong riffs and some very technical playing all around, so don’t expect much in the way of cheese. I find this album to be much more melodically balanced in comparison to anything else they’ve done since the debut, but it’s still quite heavy throughout. The tempo also seems a little more subdued, but it’s still fairly fast throughout, and there aren’t any odd experiments into slower material this time, which was one of the complaints I had against their last album.
Last time around the vocals were an issue, to my surprise. On the first two albums I thought Iuri Sanson was solid, but he never really stood out, and it was mostly the instruments that shined. For some reason I thought his voice was a bit grating and irritating on Blind Ride, as he seemed to be using a much lower register a lot of the time and it just didn’t work for him at all. It seems whatever the problem was has been addressed this time, because now he sounds more like he did on the first two albums, except stronger, and even when he does go lower it seems to work a lot better. He’s especially effective when he mixes in softer vocals to go along with his typically strong and soaring vocals, as showcased on “Silence Will Make You Suffer”.
Another problem I had with the previous two albums was songwriting: Both albums had some big highlights, but they were let down by a few weaker songs each, and many songs had highlights but didn’t work too well on the whole. This time around, there’s still three really big highlights, but more importantly all the other songs are solid, so there’s nothing here that isn’t at least fun to listen to.
They threw in a few surprises this time, the biggest of which being the title track, which has a bit of a thrash feel to it, especially when the guest vocalist shows up and screams in a way more fitting for a thrash band. Strangely enough, while the song is rather slow and heavy by their standards, the contrast between the guest and Iuri works really well and the main riff is awesome, so the song manages to stand out in a surprisingly impressive way. The next big highlight is “Silence Will Make You Suffer”, which starts out very calmly with Iuri using his soft vocals, before exploding into one of the most intense songs on the album, with a ridiculously catchy chorus. Last but not least is the closing track “The Way It is”, an 8 minute epic which is already an excellent, more traditional power metal song for the first few minutes, then the band decides to throw in a really awesome instrumental section that fully demonstrates their technical ability, but without coming off in an annoying way where it seems like they’re just showing off, and in the end it provides perhaps the biggest highlight on an already strong album. Aside from the ballad “Shall I Keep On Burning”, which is pretty solid, the rest of the album is generally more straight-forward power metal with a fairly classic feel to it, and while most of the songs sound a bit similar, they’re all very good.
I won’t say it’s a classic on the level of their debut, but Silent Revenge is definitely a solid album, and as a longtime Hibria fan I can say it’s the first time in a while I’ve felt optimistic about their future, as they managed to stop the slight downward slide they had been going on. Fans of classic twin guitar power metal who don’t mind some modern touches here and there are recommended to check this out.
Written by Travis
Ratings Travis 8/10
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