The latest material from Florida based Calm demonstrates a band who have made a huge leap; With this new material being their best yet in any criteria you care to measure them. However, despite this marked improvement the band still manage to hit and miss in equal measures.

Whilst the music is their most confident yet, the vocals, although improved, still manage to frustrate as they disappointingly lack a cathartic amount of emotion and instead occupy the middle ground, becoming almost monotone. This is a shame being that it is so hard to overlook and even more so when he does hit the mark proving that it is within his potential. Try as it might, the opening song "Ascending To Twenty-Five" with its crescendo of refined, almost P.O.D. sounding riffs cannot warm up the flat vocal performance. Songs like "Your Own Tears" fair a bit better however with more attitude based vocals being put into play, rather than trying to solely invoke an emotional feel and coming up short. Overall the music brings to mind the cutting nature of such Deftones tracks as "Teething" and for a brief moment we hear glimpses of the bands potential to run the gamut of genuine sultry emotion to hammering hook filled riffs. "A Whisper Remains" sees a return to the dull nature of the band and only peaks your interest nearly three minutes in with a hardcore styled vocal that is its one saving grace. Indeed it seems that it is when Calm are at their least calm musically that they feel at home in their element and the final song merely cements this belief as they produce some keen sounding hardcore with none of the hang ups of the prior three songs. Not a million miles away from the trigger happy feel of Poison The Well, it leaves me with hope that the band can step up and find their form and balance this with the level of emotion they so nearly convey.