SILENCE

Having listened through the A.C.T. catalogue for only about a month now, I have to say I'm very impressed with the band and Silence is, for the time being at least, my favorite of their output. The first to albums are excellent as well, but the much praised Last Epic sounds a bit more play it safe to me.

The poppiness and constant cheerfulness (I even described them as prog ABBA to a friend) are really deceptive here, because the storyline is fairly dark; the contrast between light and shade is the point - as indeed evidenced in the album cover. And if you listen through it all without breaks, you'll notice that the music gets more complex and proggier along the way, as the themes of the story come to the fore and the silence is finally broken. So it's a matter of a narrative and dramatic arc, really: the straight on guitar rock of the first tracks gives way to some very intricate stuff on the latter half of the album.

Myself, I like it when prog bands take their chances with good pop and catchy choruses, and being a huge It Bites fan, A.C.T. fits my tastes to the T. They have a wonderful sense of playfulness but are also completely capable of going serious; the achingly beautiful Father's Love and the darker but still hopeful The Wound That Won't Heal testify to this.

To put it briefly: if you like your musicians skillful but not egomaniac, your choruses hummable but not dumb, and if you think that humour does indeed belong to music, then just do it - A.C.T.