Van Canto – Break The Silence

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It is hard to believe that the novelty of Van Canto’s acapella metal still draws interest. Conceptually, Van Canto should be entertaining enough that you notice them for a song, think that’s clever, and move on. However, somehow this has managed to carry on for several albums, moving on from covers of Nightwish and Manowar songs, and focusing more on original material. The glaring question is…. why? Break the Silence is more of the same, the same worn joke without any changes. With the exception of the album’s final song (a piano ballad version of Manowar’s Master of The Wind, which is reasonable), all the tracks feature the band’s two main singers over an irritating and charmless imitation of guitar chugging, with a drummer smashing away behind them. One has to wonder how this can be called acapella when there is a very loud drum-kit kicking away in the back, drowning out the desperate attempts to mimic metal in the front. The ‘guitarists’ are utterly dreadful – the sound they make is frightfully annoying, and sounds more like a synthesiser than it does either guitars or even vocals. To say they get on one’s nerves is an understatement. Both leads are reasonable enough – the male singer wins points for a genuinely good job singing the German Neuer Wind, though that doesn’t make up for the hammed-up travesty he makes of Alice Cooper‘s Bed of Nails. Nor do either singer make up for the fact that this is simply put an imitation – performing metal this way doesn’t add anything, and it just sounds like an extremely poorly produced metal record. Where Apocalyptica have always earned respect is their ability to use their gimmick to their advantage, allowing them to do what a standard metal band can not. Van Canto don’t do that, they just repeat their single idea, and the results are not pleasant at all.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Other, Quick.Play Reviews, Van Canto