Word Album Review Thunderer & Excelsior

Published on 10th January 2008 (UK)

Media title : Word Magazine

Author : David Quantick

“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,”