SILENT SHADOWS was a band formed in 1997 in West Haven, Connecticut. This was a five-piece, Progressive Metal band with two guitarists. The keyboard duties on the record were split between the vocalist and one guitarist. Founded in the late 90's when Progressive was surging fairly well, "Transitions" was an EP that got the band on a few decent tours, but didn't lead to anything significant. The "Transitions" re-issue from Arkeyn Records was released on July 10, 2020 with three previously unreleased songs added.

It seems strange to discuss a new release in the past tense, but I found nothing to indicate the band is active, or has been for quite some time. It looks like the band broke up prior to the year 2000 and has not reformed since. Could they have been a victim f the Y2K scare? Probably not... but you never know, that was a weird time. Like the Y2K scare, this record appears to be mostly forgotten.

The first five songs on this disc are the original EP with the next three being unreleased rough demos. I say rough because the production value is not very good. The EP was not the greatest production either, but still better than the demos. The songs are decent, but nothing spectacular as far as I'm concerned. Bill DiCaprio has a lot of warble on much of his vocal offerings. Not quite Stevie Nicks level, but getting there. The guitars are good, but rough and sometimes choppy. The bottom end is solid, but not outstanding.

The Progressive influence is all over this record. Track four is a song called "Lonely" that sounds vaguely like a CRIMSON GLORY song, but not the actual song "Lonely" by that band. Just makes me think of Midnight (CRIMSON GLORY, R.I.P.) without his purer tone. There is nothing on this record that makes this band stand out. The musicians are pretty good, but the production value really detracts from the listen for me. I think these guys would have been pretty good had they gotten a decent contract and worked with a real producer.

This re-issue feels like someone found a record that could have been good with some TLC, but instead they just slapped a few even lower quality songs on the end and are trying to make a few bucks from a band that no longer exists. There was no effort put into reworking the songs and making them sound better. These guys have some talent and could have been more, but it just didn't work out for them. I wonder what could have been....