Brony Rock Musician Spotlight #2 - Silent Night
Many people think that Silent Night is a new brony musician, but while he is up and coming, he is actually one of the original brony metal musicians, where he worked under the name Nightcolt. The reason for this confusion is because he went into a a year long hiatus and was nearly forgotten, then he moved to the ZackTheKajillionth channel shortly after returning. As it turns out he never actually created a complete song while under Nightcolt, only remixes and instrumental demos, and has since gone on a creative streak, proving he is a brony worth paying attention to.
Not only is one of the communities oldest metal musicians, but he was also a member of the original brony band, Neighslayer , where he played as the bassist. The band played a pivotal role is live brony music where they played at bronycon and helped set up Bronypalooza. Neighslayer has broken up and reformed on numerous occasions, though it appears they may be gone for good this time because band leader Dethonator (now known Lolicide ) left the fandom (here is an incomplete rip of Dethonator's music which he has been deleted [he's like SGaP in that regard]. I suggest you download it because it's fantastic). However, that did not prevent his new band Scarlett Soundtrack from playing at Big Apple Ponycon this year, and Zack appears to still be listed as a member on the band's facebook page.
Silent Night plays an old-school style of Heavy Metal reminiscent of bands such as Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. While singing he uses various vocal techniques to change the sound of his voice, so it's not always immediately obvious that that two different of his songs are by the same guy. Starting with End of The Line he become one of the first brony musicians to make a song in the Doom Metal genre, and has continued to explore it with other songs. It so happens that Silent Night is an example of an artist from the fandom with a black sheep hit as his most popular song is the acoustic ballad (albeit an energetic one) Paradise.
# 1 Shadows Dead And Gone
This is the first song on the Silent Night channel and is his first "complete original rock/metal song". The song pounds around at a moderate/fast tempo characteristic of oldschool tempo with lightly distored riffs and mostly clean vocals to match. Somehow the song manages to turn Sombra from the lamest villain ever into something awesome.
On the opposite end of the spectrum of his work we have this. Dear Sister Moon is the follow up to End of the Line, resulting in an doom ballad from Celestia's view point. The song starts with a clean guitar, then bass intro, but soon enough moves into crushingly heavy guitars moving at a oozing at a hypnotic pace and then the completely clean vocals kick in. The song continues on for nearly 10 minutes, but it doesn't feel that long because of the slow, that fact it's broken up by clean bluesy solos and just sounds so beautiful.
# 3 For Those Who Love The Night
It's really not fair to completely ignore his work as Nightcolt. This actually is most viewed song, with even more views Paradise. Despite it's name it's actually a cover of For the New Lunar Republic. The song also happens to be brighter sounding than his latter works, so it adds further confusion that Silent Night is actually Nightcolt.
I'll finish with one of my personal favorites of his (my other is Smoke and Mirrors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwN_Jh6f5rQ ). It also might his heaviest song. While Dear Sister Moon might have heavier guitars in the doom sense, the guitars here pack more of punch, making them more hard hitting, which is fitting as this is an aggressive song, not a ballad. The song is also notable because of the dynamics in the vocals in it. The intro features a rough and rhythmic form of singing which is sharply contrasted by the pre-chorus, which features a higher pitched, clean, and very melodic singing style. The chorus itself is a low shout similar to the intro, though there are some differences. The contrast between the solo and the riff seem to mirror that of the vocals and ultimately I just think this song is awesome.