Make no mistake; Amorphis is ready for their close-up. Their sound is big, massive and ready for metal radio and Headbangers Ball if such things even matter anymore. Silent Waters mixes the familiar deep, growling vocals with a band that sounds like Iced Earth’s kid brother.

The songs on Silent Waters tend to favor epic soundscapes littered with acoustic guitars, pianos and any other instrument you can name. There’s a lot of power metal influence with mystical kind of lyrics about rituals, rivers and god knows what else. The album gets off to a rocking start with the dual tracks “Weaving The Incantation” and “A Servant” having similar structures. The real power metal stuff comes out on the title track, with its piano intro and lighters-in-the-sky style. While the influence of power metal is here, Amorphis isn’t that kind of band. For a metal act on Nuclear Blast, they are surprisingly close to a more mainstream metal band like Avenged Sevenfold than anything else. Just listen to “Towards and Against,” with its galloping rhythm and clean vocals, and tell me it couldn’t get MTV airplay, you know, if MTV actually played videos. This is both a good and bad thing. Good because the songs are easily headbangable (and I know that’s not a word, but so fucking what, it’s my review and I will make up words if I want to) and have some cool hooks. Bad because the songs become a little too mainstream. For instance, “I of Crimson Blood” and “Her Alone” become one ballad too many.

Actually, there are a few too many ballads on this record. After the first two tracks you sort of wish the band would go back to rocking. As I said, some of the songs become way too mainstream-sounding for the average metalhead. “Enigma” is an interesting track for its Celtic guitars and vocal delivery. But where the heck is the good old-fashioned rawk the band delivered earlier in the record? “Shaman” is another song with Celtic influences but eventually picks up the pace a little. But for a while you are worried that Amorphis all of a sudden morphed into a Renaissance fair band.

Still, Silent Waters has enough cool stuff on it to warrant some attention from those that either like a more digestible form of metal or are into slower, more melodic jams.