The Silver announce new album and share first single

The forthcoming sophomore effort from The Silver— titled Looking Glass Hymnal Blue [pre-order]— delivers far more than a compelling listen; it is an invitation, an exercise in the sacred, a hand reaching out to pull you within your own depths. Lush, baroque riffing billows like the draperies of a derelict opera house, haunting, but deathly precise, a meticulous symphony offset by the incessant rattling from the basement, perhaps the faint wailing from worlds below, made manifest through the bitter black-metal shrieks of singer N. Duchemin which, bladelike, slash at the bilious bouquet unfolding above. And so follow the proceedings: an uncanny waltz on the edge of a blade, a breathtaking pirouette at once sublime, refined, and romantic, yet simultaneously spiraling forever downward through the most visceral, haunted, depraved corners of extreme metal. If The Silver‘s 2021’s LP Ward of Roses set the stage with its emotive pairings of black and post-black metal, melodic riffing, and the flair of a vintage 80’s wine, Looking Glass Hymnal Blue has arrived to fulfill Ward’s promise: dazzle its audience, incite tears of both ecstasy and terror to carry them far beyond this world, and stretch them nearly to breaking by the curtain’s fall.

Looking Glass Hymnal Blue evokes the grandiosity of the opera with its stunning epics inlaid throughout the album like crown jewels. First single “Two Candles” is a particular standout, beginning with its eerie yet ephemeral choral and bass intro, only to shatter the gloom with a whirlwind of horrifying tremolo riffing and shrieks. In an instant, the song has transformed again, pivoting with a veritable symphony of dueling guitars to preamble the entrance of a truly infectious ohrwurm, a riff that stomps like the ‘80s yet cuts to the heart and bears the weight of modern ennui. As the song marches forward, V’s vocals enter the stage, a chilling, romantic balm to the chaos that ensued before, spilling into a remarkably catchy screamed chorus by N. Duchemin. A soaring lead courtesy of new guitarist A. Kulick appears once more before the song is fully deconstructed, stripped to a lone kick drum and bass guitar accompaniment to V’s aching entreaties to a lost lover. After an arena-worthy crescendo, we arrive back at the start, plucked from the lavish splendor of the song’s middle section back into the world of nightmares.

V from The Silver comments:

“Two Candles burn, one for each face, casting oblong shadows on the walls that flit to and fro, expanding, collapsing, and finally merging into one. The drapes billow inward, disturbed by an unknown source suspended above your head as you wrestle with sibylline dreams. What restless thoughts plague you this night? The same as all of your yesterdays? The most terrifying abyss is always within… And so begins Two candles, a harrowing journey towards self. It is a shattering of duality, a confrontation with the shadow, and a plea for union and consummation. Musically it reflects these themes, inciting both terror and longing, ecstasy and despair, from its blazing tremolo riffed intro to the garish and grandiose heavy metal stomp at the heart of the song, ultimately reconciling the two musical ‘faces’ into union. Press play, and burn with me.”

Looking Glass Hymnal Blue is a towing achievement for The Silver, mining the furthest depths of its players both musically and emotionally. The compositions display staggeringly ambitious strides in both craft and vision, while lyrically, the band excavates their own haunted interiors with the hope of inciting the audience to do the same. Asked about the process of creating this new record, guitarist/vocalist V states:

“our prior release, Ward of Roses, was largely a leap of faith into musical exploration. While we had all been friends for years, we hadn’t worked together much musically and began the project with little more than a shared vision that, while profound, was largely obscured from us. So much of that record was real-time discovery, mapping out the dark corners of our sound (and selves) as we went along, realizing through the very act of creation what we were capable of and what we really wanted as a band. With Looking Glass Hymnal Blue, we already had our blueprint, so from there it became a question of how to fully explore what we set down on Ward. As with all of our projects, the answer was to make it bigger, more ambitious, more fearless–which is really to say, more distinctly us. We wanted to carve out music ornate and spacious enough to carry the weight of the concepts we were exploring and to elevate everything to be nearly mythic in scope.”

And mythic it is, thanks in no small part to acclaimed artist Paul Romano who fully designed, produced and created the album art and packaging for the record. Taken together, the art and musical compositions form a fully unified aesthetic world, with Romano drawing on motifs of mirrors, refraction, the double, and a plethora of mythological creatures and symbolism to reinforce the record’s lyrical themes.

While The Silver prefers to keep such matters open to the listener’s interpretation, N. Duchemin offers a few breadcrumbs on the lyrical trail:

“Lyrically, Looking Glass Hymnal Blue is something of a beast of many faces; like the hydra of mythology. Each song (or head), is a representation of internal reflection, musing or suffering. The words speak, in abstract, on battles with ideas of self; attempts to overcome or change the lens of the mind, or memories of a walk into the realm of dreams.” V adds: “to listen to Looking Glass Hymnal Blue is to gaze into the mirror, into its multifarious reflections, to confront your own distorted shape and perhaps catch that small flash of self that can only be gathered through peripheral vision, through an amalgamation of the whole. Each song is both a hymn and a key, a rite to trespass beyond the door within.”

Recorded by the band alongside engineer Richie DeVon in Philadelphia, and mixed and mastered by Damian Herring, Looking Glass Hymnal Blue is slated for release on March 20, 2026 through Gilead Media. Pre-order the LP here and look for more news soon.