SILENCE

Silence is my first, and so far only, encounter with Swedish quintet A.C.T and I must say, judging by the relative ratings and the under whelming impression I've so far had, I probably brought the wrong album.

The biggest problems I have with this album is that its largely antithetical to my particular tastes in music. There is nothing particularly complex or clever about the arrangements and compositions that the band uses here and I find the permanent cheeriness of the album to be quite annoying, but then I've always been one for bleak melancholy so that was hardly a surprise. At 68 minutes this is quite a long album as well, particularly since their is little to differentiate the 19 or so songs from each other, I think Silence would have benefited from cutting out 5 or 6 tracks, though I doubt that would change my rating. Listening to this album I cant help but feel that they could have given so much more, the musicianship is of a generally high level suggesting that they know what they are doing and could have written far more interesting music.

Overall its a great disappointment to me but people that enjoy well crafted pop songs might find a lot more in this album than I have. I've given it 3 because its just doesn't match my personal tastes at all but people that enjoy music with an up beat, cheery feeling may get a lot out of this.