23. March 2025
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Media Review

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen – SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen - SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen - SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen
4.5

Rating

 4.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Nice variety of metal and rock sounds
  • Good collaborations
  • Well-written songs

Covid-19 felt to be a good opportunity for Esa Holopainen to go solo. Instead of releasing new stuff with Amorphis, he founded the project SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen. His solo debut album is self-titled, so that it is quite a long album track. For that, he worked together with various vocalists. Release date is 28th May 2021

 

Esa Holopainen – About The Artist

Esa Holopainen was born on 1st October 1972. The first band the Finnish guitarist played in was Violent Solution, but in fact he is well known for being part of Amorphis. Toegether with Jan Rechberger and Tomi Koivusaari, he founded the band in 1990. They started with death metal, but went for other metal genres. The three founding members are still active in the band (Rechberger had a hiatus between 1996 and 2002). Since 2006, any Amorphis album has topped the Finnish album charts. Their last two albums, Under The Red Cloud (2015) and Queen of Time (2018), additionally went into the Top 11 spots in Germany, Switzerland and the US Heat charts. Overall, the band released thirteen studio albums and gained six golden records in their home country so far.

In the early 2000, Holopainen had a short episode with the band Chaosbreed.

 

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen –

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen – Track by Track

The nine track album lasts 37 minutes.

1. Silver Lake

The song starts in a majestic way with a powerful three minute intro song, which takes you to the Silver Lake. Very atmospheric.

2. Sentiment (feat. Jonas Renkse)

The first track with vocals is Sentiments featuring Jonas Reske, who is known from the bands Katalonia, Bloodbath and Wisdom of Crowds. The album starts rather soft – the rhythm is supported by a strumming acoustic guitar, the spirit of the song strongly reminds of some a-ha tracks (including a Morten Harket touch in the vocal performance. Even if that means that I stated that a Swedish singer sounds Norwegian, I hope Renske is happy when I say that I really enjoy this tune.

3. Storm (feat. Hakan Hemlin)

For the third track, Esa Holopainen is joined by Hakan Hemlin from the Swedish folk rock band Nordman. The sound of the song is a bit of dark and it is accompanied by some keyboard souths and steady, fast work on the drums. The song comes with a nice focus on the vocals. While about the first two minutes feel rather quiet, almost defense, a rocking touch is popping up more and more later during the some four minutes of Storm.

4. Ray Of Light (feat. Einar Solberg)

Einar Solberg is the keyboarder and singer of Leprous, a prog metal band from Notodden in the Telemark region. Very impressive sound and great vocal performance – the high voice gives a nice flavor to this rocker.

5. Alkusointu (feat. Vesa-Matti Loiri)

The middle song of the album, Alkusointu, will be quite a lingustic challenge for a lot of listeners, but comes with some really cool atmosphere. It is a spoken word song (in Finnish), which feels very impressive and comes with a lot of atmosphere. Great guitar work, for example. One of the highlights of the album to me… Could just anyone tell me the story of the song? 🙂

6. In Her Solitude (feat Tomi Joutsen)

The sixth song is the first one to which Esa Holopainen invited a fellow countryman. If two Finns meet, there must be metal: Tomi Joutsen, one of the Amorphis bandmates, growls and sings to the hard sound of the marching guitars. Time to raise your first or show the devil horns and bang your head. Cool song, which partially almost falls back to a timid folk music sound.

7. Promising Sun (feat. Björn ‘Speed’ Strid)

Promising Sun has been one of the three songs Holopainen already had ready before he in fact started to properly work on the Silver Lake project. For this track he is joined by Björn Speed Strid, the recording is a nice and straight melodic metal song, which also could be a lot of fun in case Holopainen decides to bring his solo music on stage. Nice listen.

8. Fading Moon (feat. Anneke Van Giersbergen)

Anneke van Giersbergen is a Dutch singer, who is most well known for heading The Gathering and working on her very own Ague de Annique thereafter. The song is a nice metal track, which is almost on the symphonic side, the quiet moment give a flavor of folk as well. Her clear voice gives a lovely contrast to the guitars. One of the best songs of the album to me.

9. Apprentice (feat. Jonas Renkse)

Jonas Renske did a good job to open the album with the first song with vocals – so why not getting him back for the great finale? The song is significantly softer than the tracks before, it even has a slight feeling of a power ballad. Cool instrumental performance, good song.

 

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen –

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen – Spotify

Here is the album on Spotify:

 

 

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen –

SILVER LAKE by Esa Holopainen – My View

Well done, Esa Holpainen – this debut solo try worked out in a great manner. Good songs, good collaborations, headbangers and emotional moments. That’s all a good album needs – and thus, I call it a Top Pick!

 

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