Silent Planet

If you were to ask me who the next big breakthrough band is in metalcore, the answer is so simple. It's the Christian headbangers from California known as Silent Planet. The band consists of Garrett Russell - vocals, Thomas Freckleton - bass, keyboards, and clean vocals, Mitchell Stark - guitar, and Alex Camarena - drums. These guys have released 2 EPs, and 2 full lengths since 2012 with their first full length releasing in 2014 and their latest full length released summer of 2016. For being such a young band, these guys have already racked up quite the fan base with close to 200,000 likes on Facebook and their most popular music video has close to 800,000 views. But of course those numbers aren't as big as a lot of metalcore bands, but STILL! It's awesome seeing how many people already support these guys and they are only just getting started! I saw them in Lawrence back in November and it was just so surreal finally getting to see them and next time they make it to Lawrence I hope to see some familiar faces there, trust me guys they put on an amazing show no matter if they're headlining or opening!

Back on track though, as stated before they're a Christian band but trust me you don't have to be Christian to get into them or any other Christian band for that matter! I'm most definitely far from being religious but I love their music so much and they do an excellent job of appealing to everyone no matter their beliefs. For example, each song on their latest album Everything Was Sound has to deal with a different mental illness and they tell of a story in a way. The song Panic Room is about PTSD and tells the story of Garrett's friend who was deployed in Afghanistan and shot a man in the leg to stop him not kill him but the man ended up bleeding out and this friend of Garrett's lives with that horror like so many other people who have seen combat in any way. The song Psychescape is about schizophrenia, Nervosa deals with anorexia, etc. There's a great series of videos where Garrett talks in depth about each song and their meanings so I'll post the link to that series since I imagine you'd actually want to hear it from a member of the band explain it as opposed to me. This isn't their only album where they've done this though, their second EP lastsleep (1944-1946) tells the stories of three different World War 2 survivors and then their first full length The Night God Slept tells various stories through the eyes of female protagonists. For example, XX (City Grave) focuses on sex trafficking that's going on in America, Native Blood is about the history of the Native Americans, etc. Again, I won't get into heavy detail about each song but this gives you an idea how metal lyrics have a deep and personal meaning behind them that speak to everyone, especially Silent Planet's.

To wrap things up about Silent Planet, they're a young and talented band that's definitely going to be skyrocketing further into success in the music business. If you haven't already listened to them and you're a metalcore fan, I highly encourage you to give them a listen especially if you like Underoath, The Devil Wears Prada, Architects, and Oh, Sleeper just a name a few bands that they share a similar sound with. And if you've never listened to metalcore before, Silent Planet is definitely a great start if you're looking for some heavy music with positive and heartfelt lyrics! Stay tuned for some more metalcore bands to be on the lookout for!



From their first full length The Night God Slept, Native Blood is Silent Planet's most viewed music video on YouTube.




And here's Garrett's analysis of the lyrics to Panic Room.