UMUR "Silhouettes" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Dutch metal act Textures. The album was released through Listenable Records in April 2008. It´s the successor to "Drawing Circles" from 2006 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as bassist Dennis Aarts has been replaced by Remko Tielemans.

Stylistically the material on "Silhouettes" continues the technical/progressive metal style of "Drawing Circles (2006)". Hard edged angular riffs and rhythms, often delivered in unconventional time signatures, shouting aggresive "core" tinged vocals, and the occasional clean vocal part, and some melodic and atmospheric moments, which are often enhanced by the use of keyboards. Artists like Meshuggah and Gojira come to mind at various points of the playing time, but Textures ultimately don´t sound like those acts, although there definitely are some similarities.

"Silhouettes" features high level musicianship and a powerful, clear, and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly. The material is well written, effective, and catchy (even quite melodic at times). It´s also reasonably varied and "Silhouettes" is overall an album with a good tracklist flow. So upon conclusion "Silhouettes" is a high quality release by Textures. There are a few issues which prevent it from reaching higher levels of excellence, and that is predominantly issues with the vocals. Both the raw shouting vocals and the clean vocals are as such well performed, but none of the vocal styles are particularly unique sounding. The raw vocals sound like a thousand other "core" tinged vocals, and the clean vocals are pretty unremarkable too.

So while the material are both well written and powerful, Textures still haven´t found a sound which make them stand out from the crowd of similar sounding artists (like for example the two above mentioned artists have), and that does have an impact on my overall impression of "Silhouettes". Had the vocals stood out more and enhanced the uniqueness of the music and had the music overall had a more original sound, the sheer quality of the product would have warranted a sure 4 star (80%) rating, but as that unique sound is lacking I feel like I´m stretching, when I a rate the album with a 3.5 star (70%) star rating.

topofsm Textures offered up a chunk of good work with their release Silhouettes. Of course, it is pretty standard for Tech metal, but it's still interesting a lot of the time.

Many people point to them as a clone of Meshuggah. Their influences from Meshuggah are certainly very apparent, as their songwriting style, with extremely syncopated or odd-timed guitar chugs playing along with technical drums with harsh vocals behind. Of course, Silhouettes is certainly a lot more melodic than any release by Meshuggah ever, and sometimes there are simply bursts of melodic atmospheres and clean singing that envelope the listener.

If there's another band that Textures also sounds similar to it would have to be the non prog metalcore act Killswitch Engage, if only in terms of vocals. The vocals are dissimilar to Jens Kidman's thrashy growl, and closer to Howard Jones' more hardcore screams in KSE, and the melodic and emotional singing in the more harmonious parts sound extremely close to each other.

As for the standout tracks, there isn't much for variety in Silhouettes. Certainly, there is a lot of switching between abrasive metal assaults and lush melodic washes, but the switches occur in most of the songs. Most of the riffs are pretty immemorable as well, though the relentless snare attacks with prominent triplets and unusual pick scrapes in the guitar in "Laments of an Icarus" is certainly a cool riff that while not particularly catchy is memorable, especially after the album is over. "Messengers" is also nice for being a very soft track, a sort of ballad when compared to the rest of the songs.

All in all, Silhouettes is a good effort by an excellent and talented band that has much potential. Although they've come out with two albums before this they are relatively unknown, but there's still the possibility of them becoming among the forefront of technical metal. Keep an eye on them.