Silver Roses

Live review from Underground 106:

SHS_9336.JPGSetlist:

1. Legacy

2. 喜愛夜蒲

3. Someone Like You (Adele cover)

4. 冷戰

5. No Regret

The last band to take the stage was also an Underground debutante, and they jumped right into their set, beginning with a droning, early-thrashy song, with some well-executed screaming and a massive melodic hook. The heaviness of the song was nicely leavened with the quite glammy harmonies, which was fun. Naturally, my hopes were up, as they seemed like a solid band. However, they quickly moved into much more hackneyed Noughties rock territory with喜愛夜蒲, which was more late Linkin Park-like – a tired semi-melody of poppish metal with some spoken word thing, which didn’t suit them well. Things didn’t get much better after that for, though they tended to start of their songs quite heavy, they quickly transitioned into playing unsuitably pop-metal tunes, which felt jarring to listen to. 冷戰 was a return to a more headbangy style, slightly reminiscent of early Judas Priest. However, most any heavy elements in their songs had their corners shaved off as they felt really safe and lacked the all-important punch of metal. It didn’t much help that their singer came off as really hammy, and almost smarmy at points (especially during their last song). I’m not automatically against metal bands doing covers of pop songs – quite the opposite – but their cover of Adele was massively hampered that their singer’s voice sounds weak. This made his on-stage emoting come off as, frankly, a bit lame.

I’m thrilled that these guys have formed a band – which is a rare enough thing for young people here to do – but now that they have, I’d have to say that they are going to have to give some serious thought to the music they’re making and what suits them. Admittedly, he was quite good at screaming, very animated on stage, and he knew how to get the crowd excited and going with him too, and the musicians are clearly talented, but that doesn’t count for all that much (to me) if the music is lacking. Again, I hope that my comments are taken in the intended spirit, and I hope to see these guys playing again, vastly improved and making my current comments invalid. When they played in the style of the big arena rock, they were actually quite interesting – perhaps that’s a direction they may consider focusing on. I wish them the best for the future.

— Shashwati Kala

Be Sociable, Share!

Performances by Silver Roses: