We got some reviews of our recent album "We are lying to you through song" in from English website Moderate Rock, US Website Deaf Sparrow and Road Records. Have a read if you wish.....

The four sparrows Sylvan is getting for We Are Lying to You Through Song were guaranteed anyway. This quartet rocks some of the finest noise that side of the European continent. And the best part of it is that you don't need to have your whisky earplugs to enjoy it. Sylvan gets as close to playing it pretty as you can get without falling into mesmerizing pop sensibilities. "I'm From You" is delicate but not feeble. It is quiet but at its core quite abrasive and invading. The equal of an ugly chick you like to bed but can't stand the sight of the next morning. It's trapping, because with some Jameson inside, shit, it don't fucking matter. Guitars eventually veering into noise trapping, the Sonic Youth element coming to the surface. Beautiful. For the rest Sylvan keeps it a tad noisier, as if they weren't paying attention to the latter works of all their influences. Seemingly messy but there is a very regimental order coming into play here.  This band's work is quite elemental and stripped from all artifices. We Are Lying to You Through Song is the third full-length of Sylvan and it sounds like it, these gentle lads are looser than a clown's pocket.

MODERATE ROCK

SYLVAN- We Are Lying To You Through Song

Ireland is only separated from the rest of the UK by one stretch of water, but try telling that to any band looking to jump the gap. Sometimes the Emerald Isle might as well be a million miles away. Dublin quartet Sylvan sound like they couldn't care less what holds them back though. In fact, in debut full-length 'We Are Lying To You Through Song', they have a disc that's strong, stubborn and fights like a starving dog.

 Punk rock but never predictably so, Sylvan's sound slumps somewhere between Black Flag, Shellac and Nirvana, and the band, who appear to be both pissed and seriously pissed-of, work on all manner of levels. If you want something bristling and dangerous then opener 'Hobo Wars' is a killer, if you want to try and sing along then 'Monkey Is A Rat' sounds like Steve Albini messing with melody for the first time ever and if all you want to do is dance then 'Braindog' will lead you from scratchy punk to a place of pure noise.

So Sylvan do make a brilliant racket as often as possible but whether it's the calm-before-the-storm confrontation of 'I'm From You', the twist and release math-rock wreck of 'I Wanna Be Your Cat', or the eerie acoustics of 'Junglejuice', they also have a command over music's quieter corners too. And, while it may be the economical production values that stops them from exploding, it feels more like the band are acutely aware that the threat of a musical meltdown is often more magnificent, and more menacing, than the fully unleashed final squall of noise.

Intelligent, irate and at times outright crazy, don't let a silly thing like the a few miles of sea stop you from discovering a great band. Quite something.

ROAD RECORDS