Review by Adam M on June 21, 2016.

Sylvaine performs beautiful post-metal that is similar to Alcest in style. This music has many ebbs and flows of emotion much like Alcest’s material. The perfect comparison would be a combination of Alcest with what was heard on Myrkur’s first album.

The music has a beauty to it that is pure and all encompassing. It is stripped down and straight to the heart, but this is also what allows it to have such tremendous impact. The music here is ethereal and very pretty sounding. The entire approach is a thing of beauty. It does transcend into black metal a bit more and gain a bit of harshness at times, but is often in the pretty mode. This sense of mood is nicely demonstrated on the first track Delusions alone. The vocals alternate between the clean and harsh styles at the appropriate moment and effortlessly glide over the music. Still, despite the contrast, the majority of the music is dominated by the soft mood overall. It has the ability to glide right over the surroundings in the most serene of manners. Wistful is actually highly similar to the music of Myrkur, though this has more of the shoegaze element present. This element is interesting, but not necessarily used in the entirely appropriate manner at all times. There are lulls in the music and they could be related to the use of black metal portions and shoegaze elements as well.

Still, the ethereal atmosphere is captivating more often than not with the music here. It’s the ingredient that elevates this from a pretty good recording to a great one. One might wish there was slightly more consistency to be found, but there is very little to fault with this recording. It has the right mood for practically any moment.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Jack on November 4, 2004.

Unbelievably these guys have been around since 1979 and equally unbelievable is how much of an edge these guys have in contemporary power metal compared to their peers.

Power metal is arguably the hardest genre to compete in through the metal world. Why? Well if you would draw a line through all the power metal bands globally you'd be likely to find that there is not a huge deviation between each band. Each act is more than competent in playing their instruments and it's also pretty easy to glean that these same power metal bands are finding it difficult to come up with revolutionary and fresh ideas to separate themselves from "Clone X" or "Clone Y."

Nightmare are not the revolutionary band that I am alluding to, but rather they set themselves apart from the rest via a huge amount of experience and with Silent Room, an interesting concept record about the life of a schizophrenic teenage boy that taps into an online computer game which blurs the lines of fiction and reality. To cut things short, this teenager goes on an online killing rampage which translates into countless death in reality. Sure it doesn't sound -that- groundbreaking, but after being served up countless records about minotaurs and goblins it sure makes for a refreshing change of concept.

Of course this initiative wouldn't mean shit if it wasn't backed up by some sort of musical aptitude, and fortunately Nightmare deliver. Vocalist Jo's voice is crisp and slightly rough, nothing really to distinguish it from hundreds of other power clones, but he serves Nightmare's sound really well on Silent Room. The same can be said for the other four guys in Nightmare. No outstanding musicians that are into musical wankery, just five guys who come together nicely as a unit.

Mid-tempo power metal with a nice selection of tempo changes that tells an uncommon story, different from the plethora of 'fantasy' power metal topics. Power metal fans would do well to check this out, but I doubt those who aren't into this type of music will find anything new to get excited about with Silent Room.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10