Keeping with our theme, Tom Orgad’s ponderous reviews are preceded by what you could call "Orgad lite," but what we call "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." The whole review follows. – Roberto Martinelli

The Good:

- Forgotten Silence is so great that even Tom Orgad cannot begin to describe how great they are.

- Forgotten Silence uses eastern melodies to an extremely creative degree, shaping them to the band’s own identity.

The Bad:

- The metal elements on Bya Bamahe Neem can sometimes sound a bit out of place.

The Ugly:

- the album cover art.

The Review:

More than anything else, Forgotten Silence is a weaver of myths, a shaper of engulfing conceptual atmospheres. All along their avant-garde metal path, reaching its peak at the incredible Senyaan masterpiece, their works had featured their uniqueness in their ability to feature a unified, coherent, enshrouding thematic environment, drawing the listener into a symbolic world dominated by its own singular, unmatchable and undecipherable codex of rules of being – rules which are impossible to convey or articulate by words, non-discoursive, meant to be absorbed merely on the experiential level.

Any verbal representation, existing within the musical sphere, should not be treated as delivering a concrete, specific message – but as an integral of a greater holistic, encompassing organism of unfathomable death and mystery.

The latest release by the band, featuring two lengthy pieces, takes yet another step in the aforementioned direction. Including the content of their latest EP, Yarim Ay, as well as a lengthy ambient piece, once again the band sets up the surroundings for a subjective experience of inner journey through one's own inner values, terms and representations.

Stylistically, the band still borrows influences from oriental traditions, mostly (allegedly) Egyptian themes. However, conceiving their pieces as oriental would be a superficial, shallow observation: the band awaredly uses eastern motives in a specific way adapted to the band's views and spirit. These elements should not be seen as an anthropological imitation of ethnic musical traditions, but simply as a convenient leverage point chosen in order to construct their own artistic apparatus. The result is a piece combining female singing and metal guitars floating between muted riffs and eastern modes, vast soundscapes of keyboards and occasional vocal growls.

Whirling, intertwined leitmotifs resonate in the musical space, making way for a gradual, steady ideological progression, containing some concrete, palatable musical ideas (mostly in the form of well thought out constructions of instrumental interplay) yet never reaching a level of utter intensity, placing the emphasis on the total absorption of the musical piece as a whole, maintaining a balanced presence of all its ingredients, avoiding any exaggerated accentuation of any of them.

Judging it in a metal context, any aesthetic elements worth mentioning would be the lack of traditional drumming – both pieces only include some traditional eastern drumming. This choice of the band has several effects: on one hand, it does wonders to the task of achieving a steady, unified atmosphere. The lack of blast beat dynamics adjoins and unites the musical elements and establishes a sense of a particular intrinsic rhythmical core, endowing the mythical word with its own enchanting unique pulsation.

However, while this approach proves itself to be very effective in the ambient piece, it should be stated that some traditional metal stylistic elements are still present in the music of Forgotten Silence – the context of their activity is not to be ignored. Therefore, at times, the distorted riffing guitars and growling vocals sound a bit dislocated without a stout rhythmical support.

However, this minor deficiency is not to withdraw from the overall impression left by Bya Bamahe Neem. Even if not reaching once again the astounding peaks of Senyaan (but, honestly, how could you expect that?), Forgotten Silence beget yet another closure of bestowing, appealing, enthralling musical experience. Essential. (9/10)