Review: Paatos, Silence of Another Kind

Scandinavian prog-rock outfit Paatos’s second album proper defies its title and explodes out of the gate.

Paatos, Silence Of Another KindSilence of Another Kind, Scandinavian prog-rock outfit Paatos’s second album proper (the first of their three full-length releases was a commissioned score for the classic silent film Nosferatu), defies its title and explodes out of the gate with the apocalyptic “Shame,” creaky electric guitars setting the tone for what some may deem an obligatory European take on the current state of the world. “You lined up all the dissidents/So paradise could come,” Petronella Nettermalm sings accompanied by layered, ABBA-esque harmonies. The vocal influence of Paatos’s fellow Swedes can also be heard on tracks like the wistful “Falling,” but Björk is an equally viable point of comparison for Nettermalm’s vocal phrasing and the band’s trip-hop leanings. Silence is an all-around rewarding listen, but individual songs (most notably “Still Standing,” with its introductory snatches of spliced-up and flipped-backward vocals, and “Is That All?”) are overly ambitious—and by that I mean overly long, clocking in at over six minutes apiece. So it’s a good thing that, when you take into account the 30-second “Procession Of Fools” and the “Not A Sound”/“Silence Of Another Kind” twofer that closes out the record, Silence of Another Kind is really only seven songs long.

Score: 
 Label: InsideOut  Release Date: May 23, 2006  Buy: Amazon

Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani is the co-founder and co-editor of Slant Magazine. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, and others. He is also an award-winning screenwriter/director and festival programmer.

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