ACCELERATION

"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.