Minneapolis quintet Imagine The Silence are emerging as one of the Midwest’s premiere metal hopes, coming to the fore with a multi-faceted arsenal of urgency, scintillating riffs and hook-laden breakdowns. Juxtaposing intense, aggressive metalcore with melodic injections and big choruses, Imagine The Silence are making a play for national recognition with debut full-length Aude Distare.
The title of new record translates literally as ‘dare to be different’. The Minnesota rockers have been putting this into practice since the current line-up was completed in 2014. Since then, the five-piece have honed their sound into a vivacious melting pot of melodic-hardcore & metal, with an incisive and in-your-face brand of rock emerging as the end-product.
With a natural ebb and flow more comparable to that of A Day To Remember or Of Mice and Men then a young band releasing their first full work to date, Imagine The Silence continue to break through the Minneapolis rock scene with rip-roaring displays both on record and live, earning nods from some of the genre’s top players with Hawthorne Heights, After The Burial and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus appointing the band to support slots over the past couple of years.
A body of work completed over the course of the past three years, Aude Distare is labour of love which showcases a sound belying their relative youth and presenting a promising start for five men from The Land of 1000 Lakes. Check out the track by track below.
Track By Track
1. Aude Distare
We named the intro track after the album itself, because like the album, it is a powerful start to something new and different. The eerie feel sets listeners up for the sort of horror-themed “Are We Gonna Ouija or What?” Every time we hear it start live, our blood gets pumping and the adrenaline kicks in.
2. Are We Gonna Ouija or What?
Lyrically, this song is one that we are very proud of. It references the Ouija board and belief in the paranormal, as a metaphor to explain our struggle with our faith in a higher power. Instrumentally, it took us the longest to piece this one together to our satisfaction. It was one of the first songs we started, but the last to be finished.
3. It’s Just Business
The lyrics are about betrayal and backstabbing; people were being incredibly two-faced all around us. It got to the point that it was affecting us as a band, as well as individually, and we just decided that we would retaliate by writing a song about it. Before it had an official name, we called it “Swiss Cheese”. This was a reference to the acronym for Sleeping with Sirens (SWS), because for this song we tried writing in a method that Kellin Quinn suggested to us. *This is Josh’s favorite song.
4. Complexions
This song is probably the angriest on the album. Its lyrics are very straightforward, and about a previous relationship that one of our members was in. The chorus is probably our favorite on the album, and instrumentally it is one of our heavier songs. It’s constantly in your face, and doesn’t let up for even a second.
5. Success by Failure
This song focuses on learning from one’s mistakes. If you fall down, always get back up and continue to strive to be the best that you can. No matter what is going on in your life, you can always fix it and rise from the ashes. Eric actually broke his hand during tracking of this song; we had to wait two whole months for it to heal before we could finish tracking the drums.
6. One-Thousand Words
As a collective, this song is our favorite. “One-Thousand Words” is what we like to call a “post-breakup love song.” It’s about a relationship that has a consensual end, but still ends in a way that one person is affected by it more so than the other. It expresses sorrow, but also wishes the other person the best; we feel that (so far) this song is our greatest accomplishment as band. It’s something all of us have experienced at least once in our lives. It really is a song that anyone can relate to, but it specifically hits home for us. *This is Julien, Eric, and Devin’s favorite song.
7. Enslaved
At the risk of sounding redundant, this is another track about a toxic relationship. It’s more of a classic-metal influenced track; the harmonies, both instrumental and vocal, are some of our favorites on “Aude Distare”. It was one of the songs that we had written before we even had the name for the band. *This is Nick’s favorite song.
8. Forgery
Until it was completely tracked and mixed, we were really unsure about this one. It is definitely the track that leans a little more toward the rock genre. The lyrics are basically calling someone out that acts loyal, but has ulterior motives. Obviously, this is a trait no one is a fan of, and we really feel the lyrics did a good job portraying the anger without having to make the song heavier instrumentally.
9. Sense of Direction
Delving into the topic of self-destruction, this track is one of our darker songs. We literally say “I fear I’m too far gone” before the breakdown, being a metaphor for a point in our lives where we “broke down,” thinking we were beyond saving. Every time we play it, we are reminded of how low we were, and how far we’ve come. It’s definitely one of the more heartfelt songs for all of us.
10. A Sound Escape
This is a big one. We wanted to write a song about how music is a way for us to escape from the problems in our everyday life; thus, the title, “A Sound Escape.” We specifically put it as the last track on the album to show that, despite any and all of the hardships that we’ve gone through, we know that we can always turn to music to ease the pain. Our passion is our “someplace free of suffering”. We wanted to end the album on a positive note, and we feel this song certainly achieved just that.
Purchase Aude Distare on iTunes.
