On their fourth album now, A.C.T. have blossomed into one of the most interesting prog/pop/rock/pomp bands on the European scene. Even that clumsy description seems inadequate. The music is indefinable, arguably unique and certainly satisfying.
You can hear Jellyfish, Queen,
Valentine . . . eighties pomp percolated through seventies rock and pop. It's got all of the invention and instrumental meld of a band like
Kansas or Rush, but with better tunes.
The songs seem fragile yet tightly constructed. The melodies seem light and airy, yet they are as sturdy and robust as the heaviest of metals. You just never expect the band's tightly coiled, serpentine song arrangements to unravel. The paradigm gets shifted every five minutes.
'Silence' is innovative and imaginative, full to bursting with beautiful songs that touch your emotional pulse like few mainstream rock albums could ever hope to do.
Opener
'Truth Is Pain' captures all these elements, morphing from an almost Abba like verse with strings, keyboards and angelic voices sighing away in the background to thudding, proggy rhythms and barbed guitars.
'
Puppeteers' recalls US cult band Jetliner in the way it resurrects catchy, colourful seventies pop, then gives it a contemporary spin.
'No Longer Touching Ground' has some magical ELO-esque pop music moments, while
'Call In Dead' has that same burlesque quality that
Valentine does so well, an all-join-in music hall, knockabout feel, with Beatle / Beach Boys-ish undertones.
Among many tracks of a witheringly high standard,
'Into The Unknown' and '
Hope' stand out. The band make the first's beautifully resolved hook and the second's gear shift into a hard rocking middle section appear effortless. The first time you hear them you have difficulty lifting your jaw off the floor.
On the downside, sometimes you wish it was all a bit louder . . . that the guitars were further up in the mix on this song, the keyboards further up on that song and so forth. But that's probably only the thoughts of a philistine who doesn't truly appreciate the album's subtleties. Or maybe I've just been listening to
Korn too much.
One thing you could not do is accuse ACT of conformity. Many bands spurn convention of course, but few do it so skilfully and passionately. That's what makes the difference.
Written by
Brian Sunday, September 24, 2006
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