mast_img
Photo Credit:
Giant Walker
September 19, 2024| RELEASE REVIEW

Giant Walker – Silhouettes | Album Review

Powered equally by strikingly sturdy riffs and fire catching crystalline vocals, Newcastle’s Giant Walker deliver giant strides on second album Silhouettes.

Hailing from the North East of England but finding each other in the South, Giant Walker’s debut All in Good Time promised a band to keep an ear out for and Church Road Records were listening as they promptly signed them up. For their follow up (and first for their new label) they duly take the level up several magnificent notches. The writing is sharper, the riffs bend and twist with greater elasticity, the confidence rides even higher, and Steff’s crystalline vocals catch your eyes like sparks in a drought ridden forest. Its a mighty powered combination which merges their bonding over eclectic progressive music with powered heavy melodic rock.

It is in the latter – where the emphasis on rocking hard with the melodies high up on the dial – instantly invites you in as a captive immersive listener to their tightly crafted songs. ‘Time to Waste’, ‘Make Me’, and the swaggering mid-temp robust rocker ‘Use on Me’ are instant gems. Its a high setting which remains continuously after several plays, while at this point, the slow burners reveal themselves. The title track’s acoustic guitar picking supplements the shifts to robust electric power as Steff’s floating voice shimmers. While the quality of ‘Eraser’ lies in the way the song builds as the mighty riffs increase and the guitar work in the middle segment simply soars. On occasions Tom Morello’s output with Audioslave can be heard as a possible influence. What is clear, all the elements the band showed on their debut have cemented and flourished for even greater cohesiveness. The production remains as sharp and on point as on the afore-mentioned debut, so the songs are punchy when they need to be and glacial and ambient for some neatly applied melancholic soundscapes.

While the band have Prog Rock expansive elements in their DNA, they never lose sight of what basically amounts to bloody good rock tunage. The songs are compact, deliver intensity and administered with feeling, and the high level of musicianship always serves the songs. No unnecessary showboating for showboating’s sake here. Applying a healthy (and very welcome) reminder dose of Soundgarden into the mix (combined with their additional love of Radiohead, Karnivool, and Deftones), impressive is the one worded impression that never dimmers on every listen. Steff’s vocal performances across the whole album are quite staggering. The ability to blend sophisticated melodies with melancholy, and strength, is a hook just as equally compelling as the riffs. It is no simple task to create riffs that sounds fresh and modern. Though the whole band and the sound they create is simply class.  Silhouettes is the sound of a band in complete control of their talents and it radiantly glows. It proudly states Giant Walker have developed their own distinctive sound, so it really deserves to begin the band’s rise up the rock ladder.

Score: 8/10


Giant Walker