Conor Fynes 'Acceleration' - Age Of Silence (8/10)

Age Of Silence came together as a fusion from members of Mayhem, Arcturus, Solefald, and so on. In other words, this is something of a supergroup between the more adventurous bands in the Norwegian black metal scene. At once, this may excite fans of those bands, perhaps wanting to hear some sort of 'ultimate' black metal album. On the contrary, many of the overt black metal sounds have been filtered out, and instead, these musicians try their hand at a very strange and keyboard-heavy take on avant-garde metal. It takes some getting used to, but 'Acceleration' is a successful departure from these musicians' black metal roots.

With a sound somewhat similar to that of fellow avant-metallers Solefald, Age Of Silence is an elaborate mish-mash of styles, rolled into one distinctive sound. The symphonic keyboards of band leader Andy Winter give a gothic vibe to the music, and he brings some eerie classical piano to the table on top of that. Age of Silence is decidedly not a black metal band, but the guitars here aren't too dissimilar from Emperor, or Ihsahn's solo work. The most distinctive element of Age Of Silence's music are the vocals, offered here by Lars Nedland. His voice is very melodic, and there is no ego in his delivery; while a more traditional metal or rock singer would have put inflections in the performance or at least something to prove that they are a great or fantastic singer, Nedland's performance sticks to the words on paper and draws within the lines, almost uncomfortably so. In truth, his vocals here are wonderful, with great vibrato and some complicated vocal harmonies running throughout the album. It does sound like he is singing with a gun to his back however, and not all listeners are going to like that.

The lyrics are at-times puzzling, but there is a very concrete theme that runs through the album. As is reflected in the artwork, 'Acceleration' is a largely nihilistic perspective of modern life, its fast-paced workings, and the general sense that humans are becoming more like machines, and less like real people. The song titles do offer this concept up a bit too readily, but the lyrics tackle it well enough, throwing in a dash of surrealism to satisfy the avant-fans. The production is often cold and disparate, but it works well like that. Besides a warm respite with the acoustic 'I No Longer Know If I Am Mad', the music relies on cold, gloomy guitars, incredibly varied keyboards, and many other surprises- like electronic beats- that sometimes only ever appear once throughout the entire album. This is an eerie and strange album, and won't fail to alienate plenty of the fans of the bands for which these musicians are otherwise best known for. It is pretty jarring at first to hear avant-garde metal with such melodic vocals, but underneath the aloof impression I first got from 'Acceleration', there is something oddly beautiful here.

UMUR "Acceleration" is the debut full-length studio album by Norwegian progressive metal act Age of Silence. The album was released through The End Records in September 2004. Age of Silence features quite a few prolific Norwegian musicians, who among others play or have played with acts like Arcturus, Borknagar, Mayhem, Solefald and Winds. Actually 4/5 of the lineup on "Acceleration" also played in Winds at that point.

The music on "Acceleration" is dark progressive metal with some really beautiful momemts but unfortunately also a lot of monotone and rather bland moments that drag the quality of the music down. The great thing about "Acceleration" is the dark atmosphere that makes the band´s music unique while some of the more mediocre things include some very standard guitar riffing, rather forgettable melody lines and monotone vocals. The tracks don´t stand out much from each other either. It´s obvious the band have a vision of creating original sounding music though and they do succeed in creating a distinct and quite original sound. The outcome is unfortunately somewhat questionable. There´s simply not enough memorable moments or catchy hooks to hold on to in the music. The album just seems to pass by without making much impact and when it´s through it´s more or less forgotten. It´s not really bad but rather forgettable and seriously lacking bite and passion.

The sound production is professional and suits the music well and besides the quite monotone vocal delivery the musicianship are on a high level, so on those parameters "Acceleration" is a quality release. It´s the songwriting and the way the band have chosen to constuct their tracks that leave me a bit cold. If you think dark progressive metal with monotone emotionless vocals and unmemorable melody lines sound like your poison, this might impress you more than it impresses me. Still a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

Sleeper Age of Silence debut album, Acceleration, is a lesson in how to do things a little differently as well as in how not to do them. Though this band doesn't intend to sound anything like Dream Theater (an easy trap to fall into), they do sound annoyingly similar to the band Winds, who admittedly share 4 of this quintets number making that comparison even less surprising than the music.

Musicianship is unsurprisingely top notch here but its about all this band get right. Compositions are straight forward, predictably and distinctly cold. There's little here to suggest the band was even aiming for an emotional connection with the listener, something I feel is an integral requirement for music to excel. A series of uninspired melodies leads to a feeling that your listening to 9 identical songs and has a resulting effect of being totally unmemorable, I've listened to this album about 10 times and yet only an hour after playing it I will have no recollection of any of the melodies or rhythms employed here. My biggest problem, though, is with the vocalist. I'm not normally one to be bothered too much by less than stellar vocals but Lars Lazare Nedland has a truly horrible voice, its flat, dull and grating. The biggest surprise on this album is that the production doesn't hold up to much either. Its not that its hugely substandard but I just feel the kick drum sounds too soft with a distinct lack of punch and that the guitar solos come across sounding a bit muddy.

So, why not the lowest rating I could give it? Well, the album does have a few saving graces to it. I mentioned earlier that I have the feeling that I'm listening to 9 identical songs, but the tenth song The Green Office and the Dark Desk Draw is definitely different to the rest with a sound and feel that reminds me of Arcturus second album, La Masquerade Infernal, and is without doubt the best song on here. Also, Andy Winter gives an excellent performance on keyboards providing an excellent counterpoint to the guitars, its just a shame that he couldn't save the album on his own. In the end I have to ask why though? The similarities to Winds are so strong that I feel it makes the point of this project rather redundant so I say get Winds Prominence and Demise instead, a much better buy.