SILENCE

After Last Epic I was really excited for the follow up: Silence. The band had just struck a deal with Inside Out, meaning more people would finally be able to hear this impressive group. For this album, the group returns to the non-concept format, but does have one epic, "Consequences." I'll be honest, I was quite disappointed. A lot of the tunes lacked the wit, and the bite of their masterpiece. They were still catchy, but they were all a lot less fun, and less intriguing, not to mention way more straightfoward in structure and theory. A few instrumental segments harkened back to the glory of Last Epic, but A.C.T just did not have it all together. After repeated attempts, I did grow to enjoy these pieces, but not near the level of enjoyment I was expecting. As far as "Consequences" concerns, it is not so much one song as it is like a bunch of short songs telling pieces of a story. Not so much a musical epic, but an epic in its original definition. This could have been expected, as the epics from the first two albums were of the the same attributes. We have awesome parts, both in power and beauty, but it too falls short of perfect. It's a good album, maybe even a little more, but it's not nearly as good as I had expected. I'll go with 3.5 stars. Highlights are "Truth Is Pain," "Out of Ideas," "Hope," and "Useless Arguement" and in the epic: "Joanna," Memory to Fight," and "A Wound That Won't Heal."