Style: Post-black metal, gothic metal, progressive black metal, progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Death, Unto Others, Tribulation
Country: USA, Pennsylvania
Release date: 20 March 2026

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If you missed The Silver’s debut album, Ward of Roses, what’s your excuse? It’s not like any major global event was transpiring in late 2021. For the unfamiliar, The Silver is composed of members of Horrendous and Crypt Sermon. An interesting union of sounds, I know. The result, however, is not the blending of progressive death and epic heavy metal that you may expect. Rather, the marriage produces something fresh and different altogether. Within Looking Glass Hymnal Blue, there is a consistent streak of post-black metal with hints of gothic, progressive black, and death metal. Attempting to pin down the group to genre labels is a futile effort, though, as The Silver’s sound continues to evolve within individual songs and the album as a whole.

Thematically, Looking Glass Hymnal Blue tackles deep introspection and attempts to reconcile our own internal contradictions. The Silver excel at conveying heart-wrenching emotion throughout the album. This is largely done by vocalists V and N¹, who combine the Horrendous-trademarked sickly and panicked harshes with beautiful and frequently mournful cleans. The addition of spoken word passages effectively contributes to the album’s gothic feel as well. The emotional vocal punch pairs perfectly with the performance of guitarists A and V (yes, I feel ridiculous writing their names like that). As one would expect from members of Horrendous, the harmonized guitar solos throughout the album are stunning. From the simple harmony at the midpoint of “Looking Glass Hymnal Blue” to the shredding found in “My Lone Dark Lantern”, A and V wail and lament away via their strings throughout the Looking Glass Hymnal Blue. Though it is the incorporation of alluring, frequently jazz-laden, acoustic passages found throughout the album that provides the greatest emotional impact. As the vocals yearn for a frequently mentioned character, Victoria, in “Two Candles”, the emotional effect would have been incomplete if not for the underlying clean guitar melodies.

Looking Glass Hymnal Blue opens emphatically with the title track, which kicks the action into gear with a fast metal gallop, then quickly settles into a slower pace that incorporates serene jazz guitar and bouncing strings and drums effectively. The gem of the album, “Two Candles”, encapsulates everything that The Silver excel at: creating a mournful emotional tapestry by combining longing, clean vocal melodies with melancholic guitar harmonies and irresistible black and death metal riffs—all merged fluidly into a unified composition. Within the nine-minute track, The Silver incorporate gentle acoustic guitar melodies, mid-tempo groovy hooks, and an infectious blackened death metal riff that closes out the song emphatically. I expect “Two Candles” to be on the short list for my 2026 songs of the year; it’s that powerful. 

However, after the exhilarating high of “Two Candles”, the midsection of Looking Glass Hymnal Blue feels like a lull. “Memorias” is a vocal-led, mid-tempo track that does not match the intensity and excitement of the previous songs, whereas “Where Moon is Three” falls into monotonous repetition of a slow, power-chord-driven riff in the song’s opening and a sped-up alternate version of the riff to close the track. The album finishes on a high note with “My Lone Dark Lantern”, which, similar to “Two Candles”, opens with a clean guitar that is later heard weaving between melodic tremolo passages. Still, even in the epic album closer, I am left wanting for the highs experienced at the album’s start. The lasting impression is that Looking Glass Hymnal Blue, while a solid record, could have been so much more had it continued to blossom and unfurl in the manner of the opening tracks “Looking Glass Hymnal Blue” and “Two Candles” rather than stagnate and, to a degree, wilt in the following tracks.

The Silver should be commended for tightly packaging such a diverse album in under a fifty-minute run time. In hindsight, perhaps re-ordering the songs would have provided a more satisfying listening experience instead of opening Looking Glass Hymnal Blue with easily its best two tracks. That being said, if you are looking for an emotional release, The Silver can uniquely deliver an auditory catharsis in an album dripping with emotion. Even with my slight disappointment, the peaks and musicianship contained in Looking Glass Hymnal Blue will have me revisiting the album time and time again. I suggest you do as well.

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Recommended tracks: Looking Glass Hymnal Blue, Two Candles, My Lone Dark Lantern
You may also like: Horrendous, Speglas, Sweven, Morbus Chron
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Gilead Media

The Silver is:
– V (vocals, guitars, synths)
– N (vocals)
– A (guitars)
– J (bass)
– E (drums)

1. As the band has chosen to represent their band members with single-letter abbreviations across their media platforms, so will I.