Master of shoegaze-influenced indietronica Ulrich Schnauss teams up with bass/guitar/songwriter Mark Peters for this new release, their first collaboration together.

Opening track, The Messiah is Falling sets the tone, with Schnauss providing the smooth/ghostly synth strings and Peters the curling guitar licks; the result is eminently pleasant, carrying the former’s trademark chord changes.

Unfortunately, however, Underrated Silence fails to reach similar peaks as it progresses through to its 10-track conclusion – perhaps falling victim to Schnauss’s previous high standards.

Make no mistake, the collaboration provides plentiful easy listening, with Peter’s guitar winding rhythmically around Schnauss’s floating echoes, and occasional piano sprinkles, but the album’s deadpan energy struggles to lift the music beyond being quietly unassuming, despite attempting to on efforts such as Rosen Im Asphalt and Ekaterina.

Gift Horse’s Mouth is one of the few tracks to provide a bit of momentum, with chugging programmed rhythms accentuated by Peter’s melodic guitar riff, but even then the result is stilted, almost as if one artist is hampering the other to the point where neither is able to fully develop their abilities.

That said, there are a couple of other very nice tracks, such as the smooth Yesterday Didn’t Exist and the more guitar-driven The Child or the Pigeon; perhaps the only track where Schnauss and Peters truly manage seamless integration.

A likeable album no doubt, but in terms of Ulrich Schnauss’s back catalogue – and let’s face it, he’s the reason for buying it, one that will likely reside at the lower rung. Schnauss-lite if you will.