“Leave the corporate radio driven crap behind and experience the all new genre of dark power metal!”

During the investigative stage of this assignment, I came across a photo of Cincinnati, Ohio’s Silver Cypher with the above words displayed below it. While I’m all for bands doing all they can do to help promote their work and get their name out there, sometimes they go just a tad overboard, especially when you consider many bands have been playing darkened power metal for quite some time now, at least last time I checked. Short rant aside, the band has put together a somewhat promising little outing that is without question a step in the right direction, but hardly anything that can be considered as a genre-definer.

The four players that make up the band have only been together for a couple of years now, but the solidity that can be heard within their musicianship might lead you to feel otherwise. With a strong vocal performance and better than average melodic guitar solos leading the way, Yesterday’s Tomorrow is a fairly decent debut full-length effort for the band. Musically speaking, Silver Cypher does a fine job at combining speedy n’ triplet-heavy Jon Schaffer-y riffs with slower and catchier melodic moments that’ll make you think of Schaffer’s Demons & Wizards project and mid-era Iced Earth due to the grimness heard on most of the material. Songs like "Conflict in Tristram", with its eerily similar riffing to D&W’s "My Last Sunrise" from their debut album, is a good example of this, not to mention the murky melodic layering of "Never More" and the haunting vocal approach during the chorus of "Rise of the Machines", right down to the Burnt Offerings feel of the solo section during the same piece.

Vocalist/Rhythm guitarist Jon Krech’s savory and clean croon has a slightly less layered Hansi Kürsch feel at times, though don’t expect an exact replica by any means. His work is also peppered lightly from time to time with some Maynard Keenan (Tool) flavorings (the opening and mid-section of "Broken Carriers", and the beginning to "Pain" are prime examples of this), yet at other times his melodies come across a tad youthful and, dare I say, emo-y at times, as heard in the opening moments of the jumpier sounding "Ideology", and album opener "Unfallen" to a lesser degree. While emotional singing is certainly the center piece of the power metal style, one of the main problems I hear is just a simple lack of heft from within Krech's delivery, something that should develop and come to fruition with time. The highlight of the album for me is definitely the lead work of guitarist Adam Brown, with his well-schooled, energetic and creative solos where nary a sour note is heard. Superb execution coupled with efficient ability is the order of the day, and very welcome when coming from an up and coming group such as this. Rhythm-wise the bass and drums are played proficiently enough as each player helps drive the songs from various tempo changes throughout the album.

At the end of the day, like stated before, this is a decent effort that does offer up a few worthwhile songs that might go over well with fans of the above mentioned bands, though I’ll still take Burnt Offerings/Dark Saga-era Iced Earth along with the debut Demons & Wizards record over this album whenever I’m in the mood for something that falls within the realm of this so-called 'all new genre of Dark Power Metal'.