If my time here at TMO has taught me anything it is that press-releases are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Colorado’s SILENCER would have you believe that their sophomore full-length “Divisions” is a contemporary Thrash masterpiece; all I hear is lots of semi-detached staccato riffs and clean/harsh Metalcore vocals – neither having any place in Thrash, if you ask me.

I’ll give the band credit for obviously being quite a tight unit and I do appreciate the somewhat mechanical vibe that the production job gives off but the songs themselves, or more specifically the instrumentation, is not the kind of fare that excites me as a listener. “Divisions” is essentially a safe mix between the pseudo-thrashy melodies of DARKANE overlaid with heaps of the stop-go chugging that MESHUGGAH is (in)famous for. It’s tight and sufficiently heavy in a way but the way the riffs are constructed (as well as structured) has the effect of sucking out any real sense of melodic grandeur as well as ensuring that no fleshed-out riffs ever pop up. “D.E.A.T.H.R.A.Y.” is one of the more effective fast numbers on here with some solid atmospheric nuances rearing its head during the closing verses while “The Mind Races” is a catchy track where the harsh/clean vocal interplay doesn’t suck entirely. Other than that though there isn’t much to write home about and I was actually quite bored by the remaining tracks, so much so that I had to repeat many of them because I simply couldn’t remember what I had just listened to.

You should probably pick this one up if you have an affinity for semi-complex post-Thrash (i.e. MESHUGGAH) but those who prefer real Thrash should continue looking elsewhere.

Bottom line: decent as a non-Thrash album, terrible as just about anything else.

(Online January 24, 2009)