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alternative ulster
Silvery's aural assault on my neurological pathway
nearly gave me a brain haemorrhage. After what
seems like a lifetime of listening to bread-and-butter
indie bands, my brain had turned to a fine mush and
was not prepared for the vivid tapestry of psychedelic
pop that bounds from this debut album. Silvery's
eccentric organ-led pop is quintessentially British
with more than a nod to David Bowie, a wink to Syd
Barrett and a wave to XTC. The sheer intensity of
the music throughout the album can leave you feeling
mentally drained and a little bit insane come the
curtain call, but it is worth the trip. 8/10
10/08, Philip Taggart
artrocker 'recommended'
Drawing comparisons to early Sparks, Londoner’s Silvery play unashamed pop. Not the kind that goes, ‘Oooh there’s a girl and I love her, she has the same pencil case as me,” – not that kind of poppycock. No, it’s the kind of pop that goes, “Yeah, I see you over there, you wanna dance? I wanna dance, so let’s dance god damnit”. ‘Horrors’ and ‘Devil in the Detail’ are blustery little gems that rush in like a tornado swallowing a Wurlitzer and a collection of barnyard animals. It’s the sound of the cast of the Carry On films starring in the Mighty Boosh. Psychedelic pop, the demented ‘Warship Class’ bounces backwards and forward like a madcap Blur during their ‘Great Escape’ era. Theatrical Organ parts, the stumbling vocals, the fuzz guitar, it’s all a mess of influences and arcade game melodies. ‘Star of The Sea’ is a tormented sea shanty bubbling under foamy bass notes, tidal wave riffs and whirling organ sounds. It’s a dizzy circus freak-out – if you need any proof look no further than ‘Revolving Sleepy Signs’. It’s mental and it rocks.
08/08, Lee Puddefoot
bbc.co.uk '6music album of the day'
London quartet Silvery have already been drawing deserved attention for their carefully crafted and craftily curated forays into musical eccentricity of an especially British kind.
They are this year's Darkness, though it has to be said they acquit themselves with bucketfuls more sophistication than the Queen-wannabes. The cover of Thunderer And Excelsior, Silvery's 14-track debut, features the silhouette of a gas mask-wearing man in a bowler hat with a gun and a lance sitting on what looks suspiciously like a polo horse. Yes, they're that wacky!
Silvery are unabashed about acknowledging their eclectic musical references - 'from Bowie, Blur, Sparks to XTC'. They could just as easily have mentioned Ten Pole Tudor, Madness and even Nirvana (assuming the gurus of grunge had ever toyed with the idea of Happy Hardcore). If TISWAS had been a band rather than a TV show, this is how it would have sounded.
The sheer naked affrontery of it is appealing. Strangely, it induces happiness. Perhaps it's the giddy obviousness, the heady amphetamine drive, or the incontestably infectious conviction of it all? Silvery are The Kinks for the Sunny D generation.
You won't have to send for Forensics to recognise the musical DNA that drips from every note: Sparks are here throughout and after the scuzzy guitar intro of the opener, Horrors, at the point where the Ron Mael-strom keyboard kicks in, you’ll find yourself anchored into the worryingly accelerated heartbeat of Silvery.
That said, there's an undeniable charm (or grating irritation if you're that way inclined) about listening to a track like the operatically-structured Revolving Sleepy Signs, which starts with a drunken pastiche of Queen before moving into Fun Boy 3 territory via XTC en route to the hallucinogenic-tinged world of Bowie at his Ziggy peak to conclude in a magnificently gregarious mess of sounds. This is perfect last-hour-at-the-school disco material.
Enough said. Silvery won't struggle to find an audience for this deliciously chutzpah-saturated debut.
07/08/08, Michael Quinn view original article here
clash
London quartet Silvery unleash their peculiar debut long player, a
rollercoaster ride through eccentric English indie pop. Their sound is
focused around a sinister fairground organ, the band delivering a slice
of theatrical, music hall tinged indie pop. Previous single 'Horrors'
opens the show with a one minute forty four second introduction to
Silvery's world, that organ casting up memories of trips to the carnival,
equal parts excitement and glances over the shoulder. Sticking
with the classic rules of songwriting, most tracks barely reach the
three-minute mark with the few four-minuters sounding like epics. An
individual debut evoking, yet sounding unlike any of, their influences
and a band to get rather excited about.
09/08
classic rock
NEW WAVE POP-ROCK RETURNS.
There are times
when Londoners
Silvery wrap up
the listener in
quirky pop-rockisms, making
you think of the B-52's,
Jellyfish, early Sparks and even
Lene Lovich. This four-piece
have the same bright, breezy,
slightly off-kilter approach.
And it works brilliantly on
songs like Devil In The Detail, The Nishikado and That Which Is/That Which Is Not.
Unfortunately, like so many
bands, Silvery mistakenly pack
out every minute available on
the CD format. Consequently
there are just too many fillers
here, thereby reducing the
overall impact But the band do
have real talent and have
tapped into their own eccentric
style. They can write
intelligent, charismatically
daffy songs (A Penny Dreadful)
and have the potential to capture the imagination of a generation.
10/08, Malcolm Dome
nude
On the evidence of the eccentric,
lurching rhythms, whirring
fairground-style organ, strident
falsetto vocals and infectious
chorus of the single 'Devil in the
Detail', London's Silvery seem
more than happy to wear the
influence of Kimono My House-era
Sparks like a shiny button on
their uniformed sleeves. And its a
sound which crops up on other
tracks, most notably on 'Action
Force' and 'Star of the Sea.
Elsewhere, the influence of Blur
becomes particularly apparent,
as well as hints of early Adam
and the Ants, Cockney Rebel,
XTC and possibly even in respect
of the band's infatuation with
Victoriana and uniforms, British
Sea Power. However, much as I'd
like to say that Silvery draw all of
these influences together into a
sound which is uniquely their
own, that clearly isn't true. But
as Billy Childish might possibly
have said, 'Originality is an
overrated virtue', and the fact
remains that this is a wonderfully
ebullient album of — perhaps
self consciously — eccentric,
quirkily catchy, organ-led Brit
Pop with singalong choruses
aplenty.
#14 Winter 2008, Ryan Crabbe
q magazine - 3 /5
MADCAP LONDONERS MAKE AN ARTY RACKET.
Any band who claim inspiration from both Victorian London and the X-Files are likely to be more than a little eccentric, and so it proves with Silvery. Citing Blur and Sparks among their musical influences, the four-piece specialise in a kind of vaudevillian Britpop that throws down musical gimmickry in spades.
Their debut is a riotous whirl of crunching guitars, clattering drums, plinky piano and falsetto vocals, all underpinned by a fairground organ line. The myriad elements come together wonderfully on 'The Nishikado', though over a whole album such exuberance wears thin.
DOWNLOAD - 'The Nishikado'.
09/08
rock sound
They may look Libertinous, but
Silvery's take on Albion is awash with giddily yelped
eccentricities. Pitched somewhere between the carnival
cacophony of early Mr Bungle and Blur at their most whirlingiy weird, this is a wonky debut, but a winning one nonetheless.
10/08
rock'n'reel
Apparently,
Silvery are "not afraid
to play very
fast and not
afraid to play
very slow", but in truth even the
slower material here is high-octane
and completely bonkers. During my
first listen to Thunderer & Excelsior,
in the car on the school run, my
daughter said, "They sound like
circus music," and I know exactly
what she means. You can almost
imagine Silvery chasing each other
around and throwing custard pies
or swinging from a trapeze without
a safety net.
Silvery's music comes from a
lost world somewhere between
Sparks and XTC. Everything here is
eccentric, theatrical and hook-laden
psychedelic pop with loud, raucous
choruses and arrangements that
are perhaps the aural equivalent of
eating fluorescent candyfloss. The
quirky fairground punk of debut hit
single, 'Horrors', is a cacophony of
lifting guitars and swirling organ
and is gone before you have time
to take it in. It's like punk meeting
glam-rock in a celebration of brevity.
'Devil In The Detail' allows itself
the luxury of a guitar solo and a
repeated bridge verse before Silvery
rush off over the brow of the nearest
hill singing la la la la' as they go
slightly mad. Only thing is, they
keep returning, for another thirteen
songs with aliens and dead mice
amongst the subject matter. Get
used to the madness because
Silvery could be around for a very
longtime.
#11 Vol.2 September/October 2008, Eddie Cooney
word magazine
Splenetic, frenetic, kinetic: Russell Mael with a pencil in the eye.
In a world where Sparks are back and
cool again, it seems only right that their
sound should find a spiritual home with
a new band. If that new band go beyond
that sound, then so much the more ace.
Silvery's singles Horrors and Devil In The
Detail sound a lot like early Mael brothers
filtered through the new wave, but
there's a modern chunkiness about them
too - like some kind of homosexual Arctic
Monkeys, which would be so much more
fun than the real thing. Songs run around like they've been stabbed in the eye with a pencil, pianos tinkle like Steve
Harley over Devo melodies. The Nishikado
resembles Suede's entire career in three
minutes, while humour, hysteria and bad
ska riffs are never far way. Some may find
this album exhausting; some may find it
derivative. I find it those things too, but I also find it exciting, forceful, intelligent, and on all the time.
10/08, David Quantick
the organ
Silvery are a whirl of bright fairground rides and sparks flying and the devil in the detail and heroism in the orders (and warships that are really diesel trains with faulty heating systems...). Silvery are hobby horses and carousels and HG Wells and Penny Dreadful tales and very very English pop and yes, stretched out over a whole length of a debut album it may just seem like a never ending ride that you can’t get off. It may feel like you’re on a thunderer of a brightly painted Victorian carousel ride that’s never going to end - around and around and around with that fairground organ, until you stumble, almost dizzy, on to that ghostly sailing ship at the end. Silvery are time machines and fairground rides and steam trains and halls of mirrors and roll up roll up see the amazing strong man and his action force – and around and around and around again New ways of stealing what’s already theirs and if you want after those good days of Blur and Supergrass flavoured things that fed off new wave Sparks (or XTC) in such a gloriously English way back at the end of the last century then Silvery are very much a treat waiting for you. Meltdowns at holiday camps, rides along parallel lines getting there and la la la, la la, la...roll up roll up, the devil really is in the detail of their energetic English theatrical music hall pop rides (fast and slow – and maybe you won’t ever want to get off?). A fine debut album from the London band, just as they promised it would be.
01/08/08
steve lamacq 'the silvery prize nomination' (bbc blog)
Take Silvery! Silvery sound like Sparks, the Kaiser Chiefs, The Cardiacs and XTC (or at least their alter ego The Dukes Of Stratosphear). The combination is awkwardly tuneful, upbeat, glam and weird. Add to this images of Victorian London, old steam ships and the industrial revolution - and they sound like nothing in the charts (which shouldn't be a reason for them NOT to be in the charts, but who's taking any risks these days?).
The Silvery album due later this year, titled Thunderer & Excelsior, is a quirky record without being a novelty record. It is, for want of a better word, a little eccentric, but only comparatively so (because everyone else has become so straight this year). Randomly dipping into it, Foreign Exchange & The Drilling Machine sounds like a distorted fairground ride; Revolving Sleepy Signs is where art-rock meets music hall; and Action Force is my favourite rapid-fire, jerky pop song of the year.
If you were being picky, they could have trimmed the thing to 12 tracks (from its existing 14) and everybody knows I faint at the merest waft of prog rock, so there's a few light-headed spells along the way. But this is part of their singular sound. They occupy a minority group in pop that's so tiny, not even the Mercurys has a token place for it.
28/07/08 view entire original article here
losingtoday.com
I know we probably say this about each and every record that comes into earshot, hell we can’t help it if our hi-fi is soundly stocked up with banging slabs of tuneage. However ’thunderer and excelsior’ frankly has to be one of a handful crucial debut releases this year. The minute this hit the decks we were hooked and for the next 39 minutes totally transfixed by the audaciously crooked wired opera unfolding on our turntable.
In ‘thunderer and excelsior’ Silvery have cobbled and crafted without doubt the most ridiculously catchy full length of the year so far, in fact so absurdly contagious is it that we wouldn’t be too surprised if right now the World Health Organisation weren’t deliberating on the merits of awarding it a high category infection listing.
Fourteen tracks feature within - and blimey what can we say - a surreal carnival of sound, an acid freak show of skewiff florescent wig flipping psychedelics and day glo stained mind warped montages delivered with helter skelter acuteness and sounding for all the world like some darkly swept alter ego of Blur’s ’modern life is rubbish’ and ’parklife’ (note ‘1994’) dragged through a kaleidoscopic haze and despatched with absurdist and obscurest glee to a secret place wherein fabled characters of Penny Dreadfuls come to life and the Beatles ’yellow submarine’ is no longer an animated psych fantasia but a reality.
Reference wise ‘thunderer and excelsior’ is groomed and primed ready to be filed near or beside the Cardiacs (especially on the break neck paced ‘that which is / that which is not’ - though not as dislocated and deranged Silvery certainly circumvent similar cosmic currencies), ’SF Sorrow’ era Pretty Things, the Scars, the Sparks and Of Arrowe Hill (check out the disturbingly disorientating ‘ghosts’ or the eerily crafted almost epic Vivian Stanshall inspired parting shot ‘animals are vanishing‘ - let the track run a few seconds to learn the fate of the Elena battleship crew).
Belching out a hook laden fried pop the type of which that clubs you into submission, from the word go the ultra limited debut single from a few months back ’Horrors’ sets about you and firmly lays the agenda, a barnstorming 104 second display of high tension high wiring wickedly warped and off kilter boogie, festooned with see sawing keys, fairground collages and sounding not unlike Supergrass with an impish rocket up their arse being backed by an inebriated Cockney Rebel all colliding and careering resplendently to a coda that suspiciously sounds like it was hoodwinked from Sparks ’Amateur Hour’.
And therein is the albums downside (if you can call it a downside that is) - most of these cuts can by and large trace their melodic DNA structure to the aforementioned ’Amateur Hour’ by the Sparks which is all well and good if you love the Mael brothers most erratic moment of mind arranging euphoria - sadly if you don’t it may well then present something of a cumbersome task though fear not for these dudes have a fair few sly tricks up their sleeve to make this odd odyssey something more than a one trick pony. Not least evidenced on the gem like ‘Foreign Exchange and the Drilling Machine’ wherein nods aplenty are made in the general direction of the much missed Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci as it flashes you through a hallucinogenic experience wherein vestiges of vivid exchanges of sumptuous bubblegum pop dissipate and dissolve into moments of grizzled chords, promenade band practices and clockwork toy shop fanfares.
Elsewhere the (I think we are right in saying) current / forthcoming single features - ‘Devil in the Detail’ is a frantic theatrical gem that ducks, dives and darts with all the precision and finesse of a contortionist while moments of the impeccably head pinging and barking ‘n‘ daft ‘Action Force’ had us reaching for the Flamin’ Groovies ’shake some action’. the shade wearing pyche lovers among you ought to check out the Freed Unit meets Dukes of the Stratosphear like ’revolving paint signs’ with its warped English quaintness.
Strange, surreal and stunning - purchase on sight.
08/08 view original article here
Thunderer & Excelsior *BBC 6 MUSIC ALBUM OF THE DAY* - 12th August 2008
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