Band : Silver Lake
Album title : Silver Lake
Label : SG Records
Distributor : Rock 'n' Growl - 7Hard
Release date : 14/01/2011
Release : CD

Not a lot of info available on this Rimini base Italian Heavy Rock band (with additional influences), except for the following. In 2003 the original members started the covers band Exodiain, playing songs by Europe, Dream Theater, Angra, Pain Of Salvation, and Deep Purple. In the following years the line-up would see comings and goings, stabilizing eventually on lead singer Davide Bertozzi, guitarist Giovanni Matichecchia, keyboardist Riccardo Fabbri, bassist Luigi Rignanese, and drummer Andrea Urbinati. In 2007, with some years of jamming experiences behind them, eventually came the inspiration to start writing original music. A lot of hard work followed, which culminated in equally hard work in recording studio.

Meanwhile the band had made some important music business connections, starting with Michele Luppi of Vision Divine, Killing Touch, Mr. Pig and solo outings' repute...whom even wrote the song “Life” or them. More than that, he would record the vocals (including his own contribution to said song) at his own MiLu's Rock Lab studio. Producing themselves, the band recorded their music at Fear Studios with Simone Mularoni (Epyrios, DGM) and the studio's own Gabriele Ravaglia as recording and mixing engineers. Eventually the recording sessions end in Spring 2010, and during Summer the band signed a deal with SG Records for the release of their album in January of 2011.

It's quite fair to say that the sound of Silver Lake is a conglomerate of its influences, but there is a solid basis of Heavy Rock upon which the progressive and soft-Neo-Classical meanderings are lain, with a staring role for the keyboardist (love his performance in the album's instrumental “Break”), although the guitarist has his moments as well. In fact, it's only fair to say that the two complement each other perfectly, and allow each other to come to the fore in the melodic and catchy music that is Silver Lake's. The lead singer has a nice high-pitch voice (he doés however go a bit deeper in the opening passage of “Help Me To Fight The Rain” - if that spoken word thing is his, that's to say), which manages to steer away from becoming heady. In most of the songs (“Life” obviously being the exception, with Luppi's participation) I suspect he did his own backings, but then that enhances the harmonic feel of the whole. With “Meet you Again”, the band shows its most sensitive side in a piano-and-string-keyboard-plus-vocals only intimate ballad. Somehow I think the guys didn't have enough inspiration, because after all they still bring a cover of Skid Row's “Slave To The Grind” as well. And while it's a very nice version indeed, I surmise that the track actually needs a more forceful singer...but that's personal semantics. If any of the above sound like your liking, I suggest you listen to the album opening “Breaking The Storm” (featuring some nice futuristic keyboards in the opening sequence) and the track “Life” at myspace.com/silverlake5.

Hum...a negative side to the album is that it suffers from the same defect as I'd mentioned in the Dream Of Illusion album, and seen the high quality releases that have been turned out at Fear Studios, combined with the fact that the DOI album was recorded in another studio, I'm led to believe the problem was not at the recording level at all, but rather happened during post-production! Still, while on this album the effect is even more annoying, I'll not let it count in the rating! However, the people at SG Records better get their shit together and correct the defect.

91/100

Tony.