By Jonny Bakes
Let’s face it, the absolute shit show of a year that we’ve just experienced has had a monumental impact on everyone. Not only this, but we’re also seeing the huge impact that it’s having on music, with many artists channeling their own experiences of 2020 intro a whole slew of albums. While many of these inevitability focus on how fucking awful everything has been there are others that take a positive spin; which is the case of this debut realease from Breaths – ‘Lined in Silver’.
Breaths is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist, Jason Roberts, who began to write songs in the early part of 2020 on the back of a bout of sleep paralysis following the birth of his son. These songs would eventually go on to become ‘Lined in Silver’ which channels the bleak and depressing nature of the last year and polishes it with just a little bit of hope and gratitude. Through the bleakness, ‘Lined in Silver’ finds solace in the joy found in those close to you during the more difficult times; and this is something that Jason hopes resonates with listeners.
The overall tone of this album is pretty much exactly what it has set out to achieve in that it’s quite dark and slow, but there’s just a hint of something uplifting that shines through. While the introduction to the first, and title, track ‘Lined in Silver’ is on the gentle side, don’t let this fool you as the album swings between gentle and brooding through to heavy and aggressive. In some respects, it feels familiar to something like Deftones with the seamless transitions from clean melodic vocals to aggressive screams. But if there’s one thing that really sums up the feel of this album, it has to be the line taken from the title track – “It’s been a year from hell. Where is the reprieve?” Which is something that I think most of us can instantly relate to.
My personal standout track on the album is hidden away in the middle – ‘A Year on Fire’. Which Starts out with a really aggressive edge that captures some of the more conflictory moments over the last year and speaks about it being time for our revolt. This is certainly one of the heavier numbers and shows off some pretty hard-hitting drums that lay down some ballsy foundations for this tale of aggression. Jason’s harsh vocals have a pretty sinister edge to them to a point where they sound like they would be more at home in a balck metal band than on this piece of post metal goodness. These then provide a huge contrast with his clean vocals which I think makes for a pretty great piece of music.
One thing about this album is that it can be quite easy to forget that you’re listening to something that is the project of one man. The songs are crafted in such a way that you could easily be forgiven for assuming that this was the work of a full band. I think this will definitely appeal to Deftones fans, as this is the most appropriate comparison I can think of for this. For me, I enjoyed it on my several playthroughs while writing this review, but I’m not sure that it’s grabbed my attention enough to break into my regularly played albums.
- ‘Lined in Silver’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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