“A Beautiful Place to Drown” is standard Silverstein, and that isn’t a bad thing. Half their songs are excellent, half their songs are hard to get through. Some sound better acoustic, some need to be pushed a little harder. The guitar has a nice groove, and they sing about some breakup. You know, just like every other album they have. “A Beautiful Place to Drown” brings a few changes to the table this time, but its simple writing style and lack of raw energy made this album hard to engage with.

The overall experience is similar to Aquamarine and Afterglow (Dead Reflection, 2017), and has a much more modern feel. The guitar takes on a great percussive quality, and the unclean vocals are on point. These are the only performances on the album that are consistently great. Their tonal transformation is similar to what Crown the Empire and Bring Me the Horizon went through over the past few years. More pop, less rock, and sounding canned. “Infinite” may be the best example of this change, and the song feels sterile.

Not all of the album was less than stellar. Ask yourself this question. How do you feel about some smooth sexy jazz saxophone with your modern rock? Most of you would be like “what? No, that is absurd”, and like a pedestrian, you would be wrong. Silverstein shows their musical prowess on their main slow jam “All On Me” by having a legitimate sax solo that wander throughout the second half of the song. It works well with the overall sad-yet-catchy tune, and their willingness to do something completely different paid off. It is so far from left field, and yet it doesn’t distract from the song, only enhances it. I hope when they eventually release an acoustic version of it they have the balls to keep the sax.

Their singles are easily the highest points in the album. The album opener “Bad Habits” has a catchy tune and decent guitar parts. The lyrics are well written, but you don’t really see Shane pushing his vocal creativity and range. The song feels very familiar. “Burn it Down” does a great job capturing their older sound, and is the best song on the album. It’s fun, and brings back a level of energy we haven’t seen in a while from these guys. It stands out as their best unclean vocal performance as well, and it is one you should look out for when you see these guys live. Unfortunately, these are really the only high points of the album.

“Say Yes” felt like someone tried to revive Yellowcard, and “Madness” is a copy-paste of “Infinite”. Most of the second half of the album felt like the same weak song on repeat, and everything new they brought to the table has already been touched on. I felt like they ran out of creative juices and just put in some old tracks that didn’t fit into older albums to make the final product big enough for sale.

This album is a frustrating one. The wide range of quasi-quality songs and uninteresting repeats makes it hard to listen to. It is obvious that they are talented musicians, and it’s sad to see the same guys who wrote “My Heroin” and “Massachusetts” not put out content that brings the same emotional performances to the table. I think if they released a solid 7-song EP I would have appreciated it much more.