SOUNDS & SILENCES

Although this band from Folkston, Georgia was founded in 2007, it wasn't until 2011, when they launched their first full-length album.Guitarist/keyboardist Matt Glisson, his brother and drummer Andrew Glisson and singer Daniel Mills completed their rehearsals by putting up ''Sound & silences'', even if no physical copy of the allbum existed, following a digital-only release.Three guest musicians, Adam Cambria, Joseph Castleberry and Paul Boatwright, helped the trio on sax, trumpet and trombone respectively.

This seems to be the perfect title for an work balancing between mellow, acoustic moments and massive, heavy guitar riffs, although a very strong sense of melody is present throughout the album.Actually this first half of ''Sound & silences'' displays the trio in full force, having series of inspired, exceptional moments and executing these electroacoustic changes with comfort and confidence.Very modern-sounding, A Big Goodbye color their Heavy Prog tunes with hints from US Alternative Rock and their music contains strong emotions, great passion and lots of powerful moments, switching from sensitive singing lines to bombastic guitar moves and solos, while the choruses are extremely memorable.Distorted electric guitars and shocking solos by wind instruments as well as some discreet keyboard lines add an even more charming dimension in a nicely composed work.Second half of the album seem more standard and conventional with less majestic moments and a sound flirting often with guitar-based Prog Metal.Not bad at all, it definitely holds the same level of passion and dynamics compared to the first half, but some great twists and the abscence of the lovely, acoustic passages are to be desired.The attempt on developing a long song like the 14-min. ''Memories'' is welcome, here the band sounds somewhere between TILES and ENCHANT minus the keyboards, typical US-styled Heavy Prog with laid-back atmospheric tunes, acoustic soundscapes and punchy electric riffs.

Interesting and promising trio.Fresh ideas, decent compositions and even a few absolutely majestic tunes in a Heavy Prog matrix.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars.