Forgotten Silence
Kro Ni Ka

An orgy of instruments that, to release the orgasm that overwhelms them, emit melodies and music instead of screams and jolts.

"Kro Ni Ca" is the fifth album of Forgotten Silence from 2006. From what little I have discovered (because I haven't found the first 4 works of these Czechoslovaks), this is the most elusive album, leaving behind a slightly more metal past to embrace a more rock and progressive sound. The work indeed adopts a progressive metal/rock style with many jazz, folk, heavy metal influences and even a bit of old psychedelic '70s style. It lasts just over an hour, but the most exuberant thing is that there are only 3 songs, making the whole listening experience truly a mental chastity. Just to be clear, they probably took inspiration from the structures of the early Opeth where a song is not made of choruses and verses but (I really like this word) of palettes not too big, maximum of 2 minutes, floating on water, without a precise scheme. Each song is peppered with riffs and melodies which in most cases never repeat more than twice within the track, for progressive rockers reading: a sort of "2112" by Rush. To be precise, in my opinion, there are many influences from same Rush, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Pink Floyd, and practically all the Italian progressive rock scene, especially as far as the keyboard is concerned.

The instruments in play aren't many, the classics: electric guitar, bass, drums, and piano besides those a bit more alternative like bells, various percussion, xylophones, synthesizers, various shouts, ambient sounds, ... The vocal sessions are sporadic and very quiet, they are whispered speeches and dialogues, the essence of singing is non-existent, but do not despair, all the instrumentation is practically impeccable, of high standards, not of complexity but more of composition, they play well and the more you listen the more you want to hear, so don't discard them after just one listen.

In particular, the drums are touched well, dry, essential but very irregular, truly progressive; the bass is also exploited fairly, ranging from jazzy for the more jazzy parts to plucking for more tinkling melodies, although not at its full potential, I think it's more than fair: it's a bass, not a high; there's little to say about the guitar, but it didn't strike me as much as the other instruments, more than anything I'm sorry for the rarity of solos, the few that appear are slow and lack energy; finally, the keyboard which I think is a bit too exploited: it's practically everywhere. Also, I don't consider it coherent with the role it should maintain: the latter should create and extend long red carpets on which the other friends can dance and not the opposite. I can understand that there is also a need for a bit of protagonism, but doing only that is a bit too much, it leaves little space for other instruments, the only thing that makes me happy about this piano is that at least it is done very well, with class, with many tonal variations, this Marty must be quite good to handle it with such precision.

Since there are only three, it seems appropriate to give you a track by track but without describing anything, I've already explained everything to you above, I'll limit myself to suggesting a couple of feelings, don't get mad:

Brighton: dreamy, visionary, triumphant, serene, long;

Declaration: raw, mature, impassive, honest, serious;

Mezzocaine: childish, carefree, sunny, wise, moralistic;

Yesterday I was getting ready to write this review and had fun finding the actual number of micro-sequences present in each track: respectively 22, 14, 11. Just for curiosity. But the count should be quite personal, don't get even more upset.

"Declaration" begins and ends with a speech from some movie probably, but I don't know which one... also halfway through the track you'll hear the dialing of a phone number.

Since I have a few characters left, I'll tell you that one day I was listening to it ("Declaration") at the bus stop and I got right to the part of this composition (remember the grandma pressing the keys? Tip tup tup, but much faster, like the good old 65k analog modems), the fact is that this sound had been isolated and therefore it was only heard from the left headphone (L) and you know how we are early in the morning, all sleepy, so I, in a fit of sleep, turned sharply to the left to understand where the heck that mysterious noise was coming from. Right behind me was a man with a long beard, he looked at me strangely, I was embarrassed.

Attached to this review you'll also find "Brighton", just the beginning of the first track of a good 25 minutes, try not to dream too much with these 30 seconds.

I hope you enjoyed the review and especially the album in question.