Album Review – The Silent Years

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The Silent Years -‘The Globe’ (Gift Music)

This is a sneaky little bugger of a record. It creeps up on you, and like a small child or younger sibbling, you find it okay in small doses but you don’t want to have to do more than tolerate it. Then somehow, you find that, despite yourself, you start accepting it and liking it for what it is, not for what it isn’t.

The Silent Years have been picking up a fair bit of blog love, and it’s probably deserved. With all the input of so many members, it’s possible to draw comparisons with the likes of The Arcade Fire or Polyphonic Spree (but not the one trick pony that the latter ultimately proved to be). And yeah, there’s bits of The Shins and Fleet Foxes here too. It’s pastoral rather than psychedelic.

It’s certainly not a faultless record – at sixteen tracks it feels a bit long and I’ll be willing to bet that on anyone’s iTunes the telltale signs of picking and choosing which tracks to play will be revealed. Yet songs like ‘Taking Drugs At the Amusement Park’ and ‘On Our Way Home’ and ‘Know Your Place’ are undoubtedly strong tracks that you will want to play again and again. It’s more than a mixed back, if a little bit dipping in quality in places.

So…you may wish to hear before you buy, but I think you’ll find something here to tempt you…

The Globe is out now on Gift Music.

The Silent Years -‘Know Your Place.’ mp3

See the video for ‘Taking Drugs At the Amusement Park’ here

The Silent Years website/The Silent Years’ myspace

Presenting…The Silent Years

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Oh but there’s some good stuff hitting my inbox at the moment.

Like this track ‘Know Your Place’ from the Silent Years. I’d never heard of their music before today, but i’m truly impressed by this track, which is something pretty fabulous. I’m gonna have to investigate further. They hail from Detroit, which has produced some amazing music over the years, and seems to this honorary scot to be one of the most musical places in the US of A. Their second album is called The Globe and will be released in the UK soon.

The Silent Years -‘Know Your Place.’ mp3

This is a video for a song called ‘on Our way Home’ which can be streamed at their myspace, too…

There is definitely a space theme going on, and judging my their website, it’s pretty clear the band have no time for those who are anti-evolution. Cool… : )

To whit: “Has anyone ever been curious about what exists at certain web addresses? I recently typed in jesuschrist.com and found, among other things, a $250,000 reward for anyone who can prove that evolution doesn’t exist. Can anyone help me with this? I could really use the $250K, and while it is absolutely the dummest thing ever to believe that evolution is not reality, I think that for the money I could pretend for a whiler that I am uneducated.”

the Silent Years website/The Silent Years myspace