VELVET THUNDER

It’s epic and it’s quite brilliant and guaranteed to get you pumping your fists in the air. Each return of that chorus is magical.

There are plenty of bands with odd names, but few could challenge Assignment for the blandness of theirs. Quite why a German band chose that particular English word is beyond me. In a world of diminishing attention spans, it’s hard to imagine anybody seeing that name and thinking “they sound interesting”.  That’s a shame because Assignment’s brand of progressive power metal is high-quality and would surely appeal to a broader range of metal fans if it got the chance to be heard. If you like bands such as Vanden Plas or Ayreon then Assignment might be your cup of tea.

With The End Comes Silence is the band’s sixth studio album, so they’ve been around for a while, with prime mover being guitarist Goran Panić, even if it seems he’s been accompanied by something of a changing lineup over the years.  The opening track is a perfect showcase of the band’s abilities. A nebulous introduction with piano leads to the song proper with a simple but effective guitar chord sequence and layers of guitar and keys that create a lush symphonic soundscape. You sort of expect some Nightwish-style female vocals to come in but instead there’s a brilliant gritty call and answer in the vocals. It comes as quite a surprise especially since many prog metal bands seem to see the vocal bits as mere pauses between riffing or pyrotechnics. Instead, the quality of the melodies is top drawer.  

The following Nothing To Say is also impressive. Again there are symphonic metal overtones in the opening and there’s another fine melody over some lovely guitar phrasing. This is one of the more straight-forward songs on the album, but that’s not meant to be a derogatory comment. Here’s there’s the tight form of strongly melodic hard rock that you would hear in bands such as Knight Area.

A couple of things happen as the album progresses. The tracks get slightly longer (most are six-plus minutes) and there are more varied elements that enter the mix with various degrees of success. For example, Beyond Recognition has a good quiet opening (with what sounds like a harpsichord) before progressing in a sort of mid-paced power ballad with prog touches. hat holds It’s a dangerously dispersive song but there’s a memorable guitar hook line that holds the song together.  

The Tower has even more of a prog feel to it, with the quiet vocal part and a very Wakeman-like Moog solo in the middle section. The chorus is good too, but the main part of the song is dominated by more run of the mill prog-metal riffing though and it’s difficult to discern a real structure or climax. There are clever changes of pace which do keep it interesting however, and this is one of singer’s Diego Valdez finest efforts too. Valdez has been compared to Dio (well, hasn’t everyone?) and while his voice is certainly powerful, it sounds a little rough around the edge (compared to Dio) to these ears.

While I can’t fault the mix on this album, there’s a bit of a cumulative effect caused by the ongoing richness of the soundscape. It’s like eating too much trifle. First bite is great but after ten you start feeling sickly. You end up wishing for a nice little ballad or at least an extended ruminative section to break up affairs, but it doesn’t come. Selling My Soul, for example, could have been a good quieter piece – it has a great chorus – but it’s surrounded by metal riffing that to these ears is slightly out of place.   

Just as my enthusiasm was waning though, in comes the nine-minute title track which is head and shoulders above anything else on the album. There’s even a proper quiet intro with just piano, vocals and percussion though that rapidly gives way to some pyrotechnics on guitar and keys, an aggressive verse, and then the truly anthemic chorus as Valdez belts out “With the end my friend comes silence; with the end my friend comes darkness”. It’s epic and it’s quite brilliant and guaranteed to get you pumping your fists in the air. Each return of that chorus is magical. Surely this is a future cornerstone of the band’s live set.

There’s no doubt that this album is a big step forward for Assignment. If you judge by streaming hits, then the most memorable song on their last album was a cover of Abba’s Lay All Your Love On Me. Instead, here with With The End Comes Silence, Assignment demonstrate an ability to put together more than an hour of high quality progressive power metal, with the title track being a particular standout. Definitely worth investigating for fans of this genre.