Emigrate - Silent So Long

Emigrate

Silent So Long

by Patrick Eden at 17 December 2014, 8:59 PM

I’m going to work on the assumption that you, dear readers, have heard of a little German band called RAMMSTEIN. If you haven’t, then stop reading and go and sort yourself out, because even people who have never listened to any Metal at all, have heard of RAMMSTEIN.

Not having heard of EMIGRATE however, is slightly more forgivable. RAMMSTEIN guitarist, Richard Kruspe’s side project has finally unleashed their sophomore effort, “Silent So Long”, which can go down as 2014’s most appropriate album title – it has been seven years since the band’s eponymous debut offering. However, while EMIGRATE’s debut was always a combination of a few genuinely great tracks packed in with a lot of filler, Kruspe and co. have built a far more consistent record in “Silent So Long”. What’s more, they’ve managed to get in an even greater plethora of guests than WITHIN TEMPTATION managed earlier in the year – and seem to have got away with it more so than WITHIN TEMPTATION and XZIBIT did.

The album covers a huge expanse of musical variety, this is often achieved by songs that are perfect fits for the guests, such as “Hypothetical”, with our old friend Marilyn Manson, and Lemmy’s characteristically gravelly, and predictably intense vocals on “Rock City”. Another main point is the obvious improvement in song writing from Richard Kruspe, whose vocals are the shining light on some of the album’s best tracks, notably “Eat You Alive” and “Rainbow”, which is a fantastic Industrial Rock song. It is pleasing that even in a side-project’s album, with over half the songs featuring guests, that the bands own performance is still the high point of an already good album. That is certainly not to say any of the guest performers are any worse. I’ve never been a huge fan of Jonathan Davies’ voice but he’s still built a pretty solid career out of it. The best guest is Marilyn Manson, in fairness he is singing a song that sounds like it was written explicitly for him, but it just works brilliantly. If anything, the fact that “Hypothetical” could be tailored so well to Marilyn Manson is testament to Kruspe’s writing, and ability to understand how to suit the song perfectly.

EMIGRATE still is little more than a side-project for Kruspe to vent his creative juices away from the notoriously turbulent RAMMSTEIN creative process and he has improved upon the debut effort significantly. Not much noise has been coming from the RAMMSTEIN camp of late, is there a chance that we won’t have to wait another seven years for EMIGRATE’s third instalment? Could they become Richard Kruspe’s main project? For the time being that is extremely unlikely, but as quoted from “Born On My Own”, “Gods rise and fall, they’re only Gods after all”, anything might happen, I for one shall look forward to finding out what does.