Black Metal band SILVERN hail from Ukraine. From Bandcamp, "Stardust Sermons" is a conceptual journey that follows a faceless character from the opening track "Lorn" to the closing track "Still Higher Than Saviour's Star." The album explores how the character's perception of reality shifts through various encounters and challenges. It highlights the duality of human belief, showing that not everything black is truly black, and not everything white is truly white. The album delves into humanity's need for belief and the unknown mysteries of life, capturing interactions with people, nature, religion, science, and the cosmos.”

The album has seven song, and “Lorn” is first. The tones are desolate, ugly, and raw, and the vocals act as a conduit into the themes, although it does sound more bleak than hopeful to me. “Unborn” begins with clean, solemn tones, and a warning that comes due quickly, with a thick and aggressive Black Metal sound. “Coffin Eater” sounds as filthy as the title. The sound is low, dissonant, and swampy, with deep guttural vocals. “Mechanisms of the Past” brings more dissonant tones, more aggression, and more anger to the table. As I mentioned, I don’t hear a lot of balance from the other side of the table.

“Absorbed Signs” comes straight at you with a thick wall of sound and double time drumming, and the vocals bring a cadence with them that you can nod your head along with. “Supreme Cosmic Shape” is another fast moving song that capitalizes on a dirty, sludgy sound that varies here and there. The band uses complimentary passages that keep the listener on their toes...it isn’t just pedal to the metal type of Black Metal. “Still Higher Than Savior’s Star” closes the album, with a deeper dissonance. The aggression is also dialed up a few notches, as is the despair that flows through the song.

Overall, this was a good album. Although I heard more on the darker side of life than hope per se, it still achieved a nice balance. Many of the tones were aggressive and angry, in the way that you would want a Black Metal album to sound.