Band:	Silver Talon
Album:	Decadence And Decay
Style:	Heavy metal, Progressive power metal
Release date:	May 2021

01. Deceiver, I Am
02. Resistance 2029 [ft. Andy LaRocque]
03. As The World Burns
04. Next To The Sun
05. Divine Fury
06. Kill All Kings
07. What Will Be
08. Touch The Void

How I love it when great releases arrive so unexpectedly.

It is rare that you get two top debut albums by different bands after the split of one that largely went under the radar while it was active. From the ashes of the talented heavy / speed metallers Spellcaster, we got two awesome bands and none of them have adopted the style of the old one. The first to arise was Idle Hands (now known as Unto Others), who released Mana, one of the greatest gothic heavy metal albums of the past decade. And now, in 2021, we have one of the best heavy / US power / progressive / thrash metal albums of the year in our hands by Silver Talon.

To return to the opening line of this review, Silver Talon produce pure heavy metal of the Sanctuary / Nevermore kind, with some Crimson Glory, King Diamond, and Judas Priest thrown in for good measure. Hell, I can even hear some Protest The Hero in their compositions too. The songwriting is fantastic and I cannot find one song on here that is skippable.

The start-stop riffing of the opener, "Deceiver, I Am" will surely pique your interest. The astonishing lead guitar work on "Resistance 2029", with Andy LaRocque as guest, will get you hooked. The flamenco-style guitar on "Next To The Sun" will have you turn your head. The blackened, melodeath, neoclassical, and extremely technical "Divine Fury" will make your jaw drop, while the ballistic pace of "Kill All Kings" - which starts with a solo and ends with six of them - will have you sold for good. There is even a gothic-tinged, power ballad here in the form of "What Will Be" for the more sensitive metalheads.

The performances on Decadence And Decay are phenomenal. The band has three guitarists and it well bloody shows; the amount of shredding in this album is ridiculous, the constant pummelling of muscular riffing and electrifying soloing does not let up at all. Here's the structure of "As The World Burns", for example, to have an idea: verse / chorus / solo: Miller / solo: VanHoosen / verse / chorus / solo: VanHoosen / solo: Silva / solo: Miller / solo: Silva / chorus. Yes, you read right; in five and a half minutes they have squeezed six (!) solos. Not of the half-assed kind but of the 'what-the-fuck-is-this-guy-doing-he-is-having-sex-with-the-guitar' kind. And I am not even going to try dissecting the pounding riffs for you, by now you should already be playing the album before reading any further.

But Decadence And Decay is not just about guitars. The rhythm section is highly technical and overstated by the mix, and, even though the three guitars are fighting for centre stage here, the bass has a very strong presence and it is quite audible too. I am normally not a fan of polished production but in this case it hits the nail on the head. And, as if all those were not enough, the vocals are also magnificent and oh-so-versatile.

During most of the album the vocalist, Wyatt Howell, brings Warrel Dane to mind and he even resorts to an atonal-like delivery which is extremely difficult to pull off as successfully as he does. At times, he belts out these amazing falsettos a la King Diamond / Rob Halford / Midnight. Truly great stuff. The choruses are all very memorable and admirably performed but what really surprised me (in a good way) was how Howell sounded like Layne Staley in some of the more brooding moments of the album, particularly in the epic, ominous, and progressive closer - and my personal favourite - "Touch The Void".

I miss Nevermore and admittedly Witherfall have been doing a good job to scratch that itch. With Decadence And Decay, Silver Talon are doing an even better job at that, in my opinion, and they prove that when 'true' heavy metal is good, it is so damn satisfying.

"There's nothing sacred,
We all won't survive,
As the world's burning,
I feel just fine."