SILENT NATION

As the cover shows, Silent Nation is Asia's darkest record ever. It shares a bit of the heroic mood of their previous albums but except from one or two tracks (Ghost in the Mirror, I Will Be There for You) it's got a lack of happiness. Most of the lyrics deal with the world ruined by mankind: pollution of the environment (Midnight), turning away from each other (Silent Nation) and that we've gone too far (Gone Too Far) and so on...

The things make it a good album are Payne's strong backing vocals, his more stressful usage of the bass guitar (compared to the previous albums) and Govan's guitar playing. The last one is simply awesome. Also Geoff Downes does an excellent work on the keyboards.

And okay, Chris Slade is not a Carl Palmer or a Michael Sturgis, but he does his job quite well.

1. What About Love: the opening track is somewhere between hard rock and prog, the Hammond organ plays an important role in improving this song.

2. Long Way from Home: One of my favourites, the first ballad of the album with a great acoustic middle part.

3. Midnight: Between the first and second track, continues a great way to create an interesting studio record.

4. Blue Moon Monday: The longest one. With its slow tempo and emotionality it prepares the title track. I love it.

5. Silent Nation: The first zenith. One and a half minute long slow acoustic intro, and then it begins... Amazing prog song, here are the best backing vocals on the whole disc (as I said before, the average is also good, but this is absolutely fantastic).

6. Ghost in the Mirror: A short bridge between the two best songs of the album, the most AOR-styled song of Silent Nation.

7. Gone Too Far: And the second zenith. The intro is three minutes long consisting a guitar, some strings (maybe synth strings) and vocals. Then the drums join and lead the song into a fantastic highlight with a new vocal melody...then it slows down again, the chorus comes, and after it ends, you'll hear one of the best guitar solos ever played! Guthrie shows that he is the one of the most technical guitarists alive.

8. I Will Be There for You: Another guitar solo, and a short, easy of digestion song.

9. Darkness Day: The weakest one. Uses elements of electronic music, it's very repetitive and boring. They should left off this song of the album.

10. The Prophet: A soft song, with nothing too interesting. Unfortunately the album's ending is a bit damaged by the ninth and the tenth song.

Four stars.