156/Silence are a band who have earned their stripes out on the road. Gruelling tours with Counterparts, The Devil Wears Prada and The Acacia Strain (amongst others) have turned this Pittsburgh crew into a finely honed machine, but more importantly it means the band know each other intimately and that’s a crucial element in their fluid sound. Painting vivid soundscapes and then slashing at the canvas with razor sharp riffs makes for a startling experience, and that’s exactly what their latest album serves up. Featuring a dozen shapeshifting songs, From A Distance is a record that draws the listener deep into their world and holds them captive over 40 electrifying minutes.
I didn’t quite know what to expect from opening track ‘Control Burns’, but it wasn’t the foreboding soundscape that forms the song’s introduction. With an ominous spoken word and guitars cascading it feels like drifting into a discombobulating dream (in the nicest possible way, of course), the song cocooning the listener and creating an otherworldly feel. It means that when the song kicks in at the two-minute mark, it is in the most violent way. It’s a brief burst of anger before lulling back into a dark dream to bookend the song; it’s a cut that poses as many questions as it answers and it is this push and pull that will echo throughout the album. What follows is another curveball in the shape of ‘No Arms’, a track that swings with a dance beat and is punctuated by some of the heaviest metal you’re likely to hear this year (and beyond).
Much has been made of 156/Silence’s sonic shift from their hardcore roots into metalcore, yet From A Distance is an album that is built on shifting sands. Not only is the album in constant motion, flitting between clean vocals and gruff, light and shade, the heavy and the lithe. Even within individual songs such as ‘Early Exit’ there are cogs within cogs, the band revolving and evolving to ensure that things never become stagnant. It’s this flow that makes From A Distance the kind of record to be consumed whole, and while it is perfectly feasible to dip in and out and enjoy the songs individually, it’s best to be enjoyed from start to finish to fully appreciate its ebb and flow, peaks and troughs.
The palette 156/Silence have employed on this record is wide and has opened up a multitude of musical avenues. The chugg found on ‘Collateral’ (featuring a guest spot from Crippling Alcoholism) is totally addictive and finds the guitarist digging in deep to excavate a brutal riff, whilst the title track (including a guest spot Make Them Suffer’s Alex Reade) is a thing of ethereal beauty, two songs that are poles apart, yet stitched together by its own eclecticism.
It’s no easy task to produce a patchwork quilt of an album such as From A Distance and make it sound cohesive, but 156/Silence have. From A Distance demands a close encounter.
- From A Distance is released via Pure Noise Records on 4th September 2026.
Track List:
- Control Burns
- No Arms
- Order & Entropy
- Swept From Under (Call Of The Void)
- An Early Exit
- Collateral (feat. Crippling Alcoholism)
- Cannon Fodder (feat. Mike Hranica, The Devil Wears Prada)
- Secret Room
- Proxy Idols
- Phoenix Dies
- From A Distance (feat. Alex Reade, Make Them Suffer)
- After Dusk
