SILVERY – Action Force / The Nod (Blow Up) – 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 adventure.
Organart.com
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Silvery 'Action Force' (Blow Up)
'Action Force' straddles the fence between irritating Guantanamo-level mental touture and weird musical innovation. Such records have a history of forcing themselves into the ears and minds of listeners. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable. It's a little like those little musical ditties the rest of Blur used to let Damon Albarn do on the end of each side of an album, just to shut him up. Odd, but not entirely unpleasant.
Artrocker Nov 2008
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Silvery -- Thunderer & Excelsior (Blowup)
This is caffeinated pop of the highest order. Silvery comes from the same place as bands such as Sparks (who they have cited as an influence), Roxy Music, Split Enz (during the Phil Judd era), Cardiacs, Supergrass, The New Pornographers and The Features. This is rock and roll sent careening through the funhouse, with plenty of energy and some distortions, which manages to stay intact due to strong compositions and a bevy of hooks.
The album plays somewhat like an A-sides/B-sides compilation, and, indeed, the band's terrific singles lead off the disc and the tail end of the album shows that they can handle more than 2:30 bursts of excitement.
The album gets off to a cracking good start on "Horrors". The keyboards dominate on a song that sounds like a collaboration between Gaz Coombes of Supergrass and Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks. The song has two distinct melodies and goes from verse to chorus (and thus, the hook) speedily.
Next up is "Devil in the Details", with a rising and falling melody, and singer James Orman quivering and going up in his range while keyboardist Simon Harris mixes church-style organ with horror movie sounds. This song has about four separate parts to it and the arrangement is clever as there is so much going on in the mix. And the hook is, again, indelible.
The band then moves into punchy Maximo Park territory on "Action Force". Here, the tinkling ivories contrast with Orman's dirty sounding guitar. Things finally slow down a bit on "Penny Dreadful". The opening riff is a two-chord wonder, a la Sparks' "I Predict", with the song opening up into a whirligig chorus that reeks of Split Enz.
These songs alone guarantee a good album. But there are more treats further down the road. "The Nishikado" turns one of my favorite tricks, resolving a somewhat dissonant verse with a rambunctious sing-a-long chorus. Well, sing-a-long if you can make out all of the words.
On "Star of the Sea", Silvery adds a ska beat to the proceedings, but only for a while. This is a mini-epic, with changing tempos and multiple parts. The journey culminates in a rousing ending, making the build up pay off.
I wish I could make out a bit more of the lyrics, which I only catch in a snatch here or there. The best songs have at least one memorable turn of phase. But it's the form that wins out over the substance. Silvery has a sound that is evocative of some of favorite pop music ever. And the songs have stuck in my head from pretty much the time I first listened to the disc. If the comparisons I made at the beginning strike a chord in you, you really should check this out.
Habloennui