silvery reviews

cat. no.s: BU042, BU044, BU047, BU048, BU049, BU051, BU057, BU058
debut release: 3rd march 2008

railway architecture (BU057CD/DD)
the nishikado e.p. (BU051DD)
you give a little love (BU049DD)
action force/the nod (BU048DD)
thunderer & excelsior (BU042 CD/DD)
devil in the detail (BU047 Ltd. 7"/DD)
horrors/orders (BU044 Ltd. 7"/DD)
live reviews & features

related pages:
introduction to silvery
releases
live shows

railway architecture
BU057 CD/DD

uncut
Exhilarating art-pop from band bordering on greatness.
London eccentrics Silvery can be confident this follow-up to 2008's well-received Thunderer & Excelsior will cause even bigger splashes, and faster. Glam, flash, impossibly intricate, they're a dazzling fusion of the tastiest cuts of Sparks, early Bowie, Blur and XTC. The short and florid theatrical tracks whizz by in a flurry of energy, as James Orman's arch vowels are as committed and convincing as Bryan Ferry the day he made "Remake/Remodel".
★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Roberts, 07/10

artrocker
You won't find Silvery posing in a graveyard, wearing black leather and pretending to be Lou Reed's opium-addicted love children. This is because of one very good reason: they are silly.
Yes silly, a forgotten quality amongst most modern rock bands. If anything, the last decade has forgotten about silly, because it was too busy acclaiming itself while stroking its very serious chin hairs.
Time to loosen up then, and songs like 'The Naked & The Dead' do exactly this: led by a vocalist who sounds like
a brain in a sh tank hooked up to wires, the song skids giddily along on a drunken melody before heading into a
climax stolen from Bowie's 'Rock and Roll Suicide' (well, rather that than the fecking Beatles again).
Like any decent pop album, this one's bursting with ideas. 'Two Halves of the Same Boy' is a bar-room piano jig, "The Quaire Fellow' is a bit like Blur before they became too proud to be weird, while 'You Give A Little Love' is a straight faced rendition of the Bugsy Malone theme. And guess what? It ro-ho-hocks!
In the spirit of not taking yourself seriously then, I'll sign o under my porn name. In the meantime, please
hunt down this album.
★ ★ ★ ★
Ricky Rawmeat, 08-09/10

clash
Art rock meets vaudevillian devilry via the English absurdism of Viv Stanshall. 'Railway Architecture' reads like a Victorian novella stuffed with pages of 'Aladdin Sane' era Bowie, Syd Barrett and Sparks. Such a gloriously eclectic sound has also had them compared to Britpop Blur: if only after a bottle of Laudanum and a visit to the darker environs of Whitechapel. From this oddball music hall scrapbook of locomotive inspired organ led outbursts, short but perfectly formed songs sprout, delicious and daringly at odds with almost everything else out there. Recommendation enough I should think. A dazzling decoupage of good fun.
Dig it? Dig deeper: Sparks, The Cardiacs, Gilbert And Sullivan
8/10
ANNA WILSON, 09/10

nude
It's perhaps odd that a band who wear their influences so flagrantly on their sleeve should create possibly one of the most distinctive sounds you're currently likely to hear. And on the continued evidence of this, the band's second album, it's also one of the most irrepressible and exhilarating. Certainly, Railway Architecture heralds no radical change of musical direction from their 2008 debut, Thunderer and Excelsior, but instead offers more a consolidation and development of their characteristically off-kilter stock in trade.
But anyway, back to those influences and God knows there's hardly a review of Silvery that doesn't reference any of the following; Blur, Sparks, XTC, Kinks, Bowie, Syd Barrett. Cardiacs etc. And for sure, though a little less pronounced than on their debut, Kimono My House-era Sparks continues to loom large in the Silvery stew. But as the cover of 'You Give a Little Love' from Bugsy Malone indicates, there's also classic musicals, as well as music hall, Brecht and so on.
Ultimately, one could spend quite a bit of time dissecting the noise the band makes to try and isolate its constituent parts. But fun as that might be, it would ultimately be as futile as chopping up an old cadaver to discover the essence of life. For in spite of all of the obvious — and not so obvious reference points (HG Wells, steam locomotives, Forteana...) — Silvery somehow, through some strange alchemical process, manage to infuse their music with a far less tangible artistic sensibility that is very much their own.
Ian Lowey, #16 07/10

the nishikado e.p.
BU051 DD

artrocker recommends
Wow. Take a deep breath before you enter the crazy world of Silvery. The grandiose circus music of The Nishikado takes you on a whirlwind with its relentless and spiralling organs. The cacophony of different sounds can all get a bit confusing, until the chorus when the glorious mess seems to find it's way. The furious pace of the EP will have you bouncing off the walls and collapsed in an exhausted heap in the corner by the end. In the words of me Dad, "What a bloody racket." But an utterly exhilarating racket, it has to be said.
Nic Harrison, #91 07/09

kruger
Silvery have produced a tribute to the one and only Toshihiro Nishikado to whom we give gratitude for the remarkable invention that is Space Invaders - those little critters everyone knows and loves. Clearly, Nishikado is a hero to Silvery: this tribute could bring a tear to the eyes of the most hardened cynic. Following an initial pop-rock guitar-drums combo, a complete shift in direction transpires to what seems like a march through a warped funfair, for the likes of Susan Boyle, some might say. With wild synth riffs and vocals resembling David Bowie, Silvery suck you in to the unrestrained indie madness. Identity and Murder Holes continue the fairground theme, with unruly synth sections distinguishing Silvery from current and past indie bands.
Sophie Lawrence, #21, 05/09

you give a little love
BU049 DD

artrocker
How do you feel about Bugsy Malone? Me, I love it! And my favourite song from the movie? This one. Silvery deliver it straight up, no fucking about, building to climax with massed choir just like the original. Made my day. I know a certain Mr Argos who's going to love this, big Bugsy fan that he is.
Buy this, be young at heart, happy Christmas one and all.
#85, 12/08

artrocker.tv
Having Bugsy Malone as your school play should be mandatory for teenagers; there's nothing quite like massacring your classmates with custard guns, quipping like 1920s gangsters and trying to cop a snog with Tallulah backstage. Thanks to Artrocker New Blood stars Silvery then, for this cover of the Bugsy standard 'Bad Guys' - which deserves to be the pished up, loved up anthem of New Years Eve.
DC, 15/12/08

what's on the nme stereo?
"Never before has a song from Bugsy Malone sounded so... er, cool?!"
20-27/12/08

You Give A Little Love *BBC 6 MUSIC REBEL PLAYLIST WINNER* - 17th November 2008

action force / the nod
BU048 DD

the organ
More of their Victorian gentleman’s club brit pop, Action Force is a catchy slice off the London band’s well received recent album. The Nod is a previously unreleased goodness and one of their best tracks - if ever there was a model of a modern major general and all the Sparks that fly and the bits of early Blur and XTC and Jules Verne adventurer
27/10/08

steve lamacq 'the silvery prize nomination' (bbc blog)
Action Force is my favourite rapid-fire, jerky pop song of the year.
28/07/08 view original article here

what's on the nme stereo?
Girlie harmonies, sniggering fairground piano... this is tumble-dried Blur melting Sparks into liquid pop.
11/10/08

Action Force/The Nod Steve Lamacq's *BBC 6 MUSIC SINGLE OF THE WEEK* - 27th October 2008

thunderer & excelsior
BU042 CD/DD

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

devil in the detail
BU047 Ltd.7"/DD

"A fine example of quirky English pop" Gary Crowley, BBC London

"I love this record" Mark Lamarr, Radio 2

"We're liking this a lot" Mark Riley, 6 Music

"We all loved this" Mark Radcliffe & Stuart Maconie, Radio 2

"My favourite record of the moment" Steve Lamacq

*BBC 6 MUSIC ROUNDTABLE WINNER*

horrors/orders
BU044 Ltd.7"/DD

artrocker
"What a little belter this is. Pure, head-on pop music, fabby guitar riffs, plumptious organ, verses, choruses, middle 8 - all present and correct. The AA side 'Orders' reminds me of early sparks, never a bad look. Intelligent stuff, quoting the right sources but never simply copying. This could be a very good year for Silvery. They should be filling the Radio 1 playlist in place of the ghastly Feeling. Buy this record."
03/08

the organ (single of the week)
Much anticipated new single from the London band and more of their very English fairground infectiousness – think Sparks, think spinning on the waltzers at the fair in the lights of night, think XTC, candy floss and toffee apples, brightly painted hobby horses, think Ziggy Stardust, Parklife/Poplife style Blur goodness. They’ve been one of London’s best kept secrets for a little while now, packed out gigs in Camden and such, building a genuine following and a really worth of mouth flow. Silvery make timeless English pop music, a slighty quirky edge, nothing that ever stops that pop flow though. They have a slightly eccentric charm, a bright palette, those not quite pristine bandsman uniforms and those chiming keyboards. The debut album is not far away now, this should more than wet your appetite."
24/02/08

thebeatsurrender.co.uk - 3 /5
Not enough bands release singles that are under two minutes in length do they? Is it just me or is there something really pleasing and ballsy about doing that, particularly when it’s your debut 45 you are putting out.
Well that’s exactly what Silvery have done for this release. with Horrors weighing in at a beautiful one 1:47. Even the other half of the double-a doesn’t hang about with Orders being epic almost at 2:20.
As you would expect from a Blow Up indie band the sound is certainly celebrating English music, you get some grooving 60’s organ and a heavy dose of Libertines stle punk. Definitely a band to watch out for, especially when they drop their album in a few months time.
08/03/08 Kev view original article here

silvery live reviews & features

coming soon....

back:
you give a little love (BU049 DD)
action force / the nod (BU048 DD)
thunderer & excelsior (BU042 CD/DD)
devil in the detail (BU047 Ltd. 7"/DD)
horrors/orders (BU044 Ltd. 7"/DD)
live reviews & features
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related pages:
introduction to silvery
releases
live shows

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