Primary Emotions/Themes: Necromancy, life after death, death, witchcraft
Thoughts: Dead Silent Slumber is a one off project from Jens Ryden from around the turn of the millennium. It's a keyboard driven melodic death metal project that thrives on catchy melodies and "spooky" atmospheres. If I didn't know any better I would say the Castlevania series of games was a direct influence on the seven songs housed on this album.
I have a suspicion that the music on Entombed... was written tongue in cheek. The music leans heavily into catchy melodies, but the instruments chosen for the keyboards give the music an undeniably cheesy feel. The first example of this comes right at the bridge and instrumental section of the opener. The pipe organs come in at such an opportune time that it feels like Dracula should be rising from his grave.
The second song picks right up where the opener left off. Again the pipe organs dominate and are paired with a galloping riff. The keyboards shift from pipe organs to poorly synthesized strings and the cheese factor is raised even higher. It reminds me of a Castlevania soundtrack, particularly something from Symphony of the Night.
Outside of the corny keyboard and guitar interplay, the music is actually quite good on Entombed... The riffs are fully developed and provide a solid foundation while they keyboards drive the melody forward. While the music is death metal by the vocals and some of the aggression there is no blasting here. This is solidly within the "melodeath" version of the genre.
The album is infectious. These songs will end up stuck in my head for hours at a time. They are easily digestible metal versions of pop songs. While that may sound like a knock on the music, it's not inherently a bad thing. Every now and then I need something that you can sit back with without having to think too much on it. Dead Silent Slumber is the melodeath equivalent of doing just that.
Written October 10th 2023
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