RockNReel Thunderer & Excelsior Album Review Silvery

Published on 1st September 2008 (UK)

Media title : Rock N Reel

Author : Eddie Cooney

“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.”