British composer Leopold Stokowski once said “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” On their sophomore album The Chaos of Silence, Welsh four-piece Dying Habit investigate the cathartic nature of music through songs that create images of tension with aggressive riffs, jerky rhythms, and dark imagery, before finding release in balls-to-the-wall rock. Though the songs on this record feel personal, there's never any self-indulgence from this Cmyru crew. Instead, the band appear to be playing for their audience, coaxing them into revelatory states.
Made up of vocalist Nathan Jones, drummer Mark Jones, bassist Daniel Garner, and guitarist Alan Hart, the Anglesey-based group comes out guns blazing on the exhilarating opening track "24 Eyes", a righteous burst of emotional post-rock which encompasses the album's emotionally-driven rock stylings. While highly euphonious, the group keep one foot in the darkness across the album, crafting poignant tunes that don't skimp on energy or unbridled expression. On first inspection, Dying Habit might strike you as a late 2000s nu-metal pop punk pastiche, yet like on the bizarrely penned "Horses Without Heads" the group often arrive at soaring and original moments.
The open and honest lyrics of a possible album highlight "The Cliffs Of Nowhere" ("I'm begging for a chance to heal") draw the listener in before entering some brief yet thrilling time signatures ping-ponging. This track is a grower if ever there was one, and by the third time you hear it, it already feels like a classic. When Dying Habit mix their melodic sensibilities with their knack for bodacious riffage like "Headlocks", the Toolesque "A Forest In Floods", or the sing-alongable "Hard To Say No", with its menacing riff and jaw-dropping drumming, the results are explosive. Elsewhere, "Celestial" keeps the atmospheric pressure strong, "Drugged Oak" is a more straightforward punk number and "Echoes" closes the album with the band's signature anthemic sound.
While not niche enough to be fashionable, Dying Habit exudes genuity and peculiar talent in The Choas of Silence. It feels like honest musicians playing honest songs, the kind that you warm to on repeated listens because of their openness and melodic cosiness, but that also have enough adrenaline-inducing metalesque flourishes to make it memorable.
★★★★