Secret Machines debut album From Here to Nowhere was part of the second wave of the prog revival, and the Texan trio continue it apace with their third album Ten Silver Drops.

It’s there right from the get-go. You can’t call the opening song on an album “Alone, Jealous and Stoned” and not deliver a wave of cascading guitars and washes of synths, can you? Secret Machines certainly have no such intention of doing anything other than just that, and they keep it up throughout the eight tracks and forty-five minutes of Ten Silver Drops.

The most noticeable differences between Ten Silver Drops and From here to Nowhere are in the vocals and the delivery of the songs. For starters, the former are cleaned up and clearer than on the band’s debut – now, songs like “All At Once (It’s Not Important)” actually sound like immediate pop moments. The other clear difference is in the seeming lack of aggression of much of the material on Ten Silver Drops, which is most definitely a surprise.

Where a song like “First Wave Down” rocked, and hard, much of Ten Silver Drops is content to merely potter along without offering and rampaging motion. “Lightning Blue Eyes” and the single “Faded Lines” are solid stompers, but there’s no real aggression to them. Where Ten Silver Drops succeeds is in the use of tension and release, with Secret Machines controlling the flow of the album much better than they did on their debut.