REVIEW: Silverlites - Sonic Abuse

When the press release for the Silverlites landed, it took me by surprise. A genuine supergroup (although I can’t help but imagine the various members recoiling at the term), it features R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Screaming Trees’ Barrett Martin, Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson, as well as singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur (a singular talent who was discovered by Peter Gabriel).

The seeds were sown for this unique project back in 2015, when Barrett and Rich played together in a tribute to Jimmy Page. A few years later, Rich suggested revisiting the idea, leading Barrett to call up his good friend and long-term collaborative partner Peter Buck. Peter, in turn, called Joseph and the band slowly formulated their debut, with the pandemic allowing the time and space for these busy musicians to get their ideas down on tape. The result is a sparkling, self-titled LP that draws from across the rock firmament to deliver a wonderfully uplifting and timeless set that you’ll find yourself playing on repeat.

The album opens with the stunning Still Don’t Know You, which draws upon the collective experience of the musicians involved to deliver an expansive and affecting piece of music. With deftly layered harmonies recalling the lush folk of CSNY, its beautiful textures evoke the vast open landscapes of the American Northwest, while the chemistry between the four musicians is immediately apparent in the way they calmly support one another in serving the needs of the song. Second track, Forever And A Day is no less wonderful, the overall approach suggesting how Mad Season might have sounded had they taken Automatic for the People as their starting point. It’s followed by the rippling Americana of No One To Follow, which combines the light-touch lo-fi of Folk Implosion with the wide-eyed wonder of The Byrds, the music wrapping itself around the listener with an uplifting warmth that characterises the album’s approach as a whole. Opting for a tougher sound, lead single Don’t Go, Don’t Stay sees Joseph allowing a touch of grit to enter his vocals and, while the band’s primary armoury may comprise acoustic guitars, there’s enough space in the track to allow a little electric sparkle to cut through. For the next track, the band slow the pace, allowing earthen country to seep into the folksy roots of When You’re Around, which has more than a little Black Crowes shot through its DNA. The first half wraps up with the brisk Need To Fly, which has the sort of breezy rhythm and soaring backing vocals that R.E.M. brought to the fore on the lovely Reveal. It says much of the timeless nature of the band’s songwriting that the melody could just as easily have been written in 1964 as 2024, and they sound so comfortable in one another’s company that you can’t help but be drawn in.

Opening the second half of the record, No Time finds Barrett exploring the range of percussion he has at his command, while a subtly reversed guitar lead traces figures in the air around the chorus. In contrast, Dark And Magic Sky is a simple, countrified piece that sounds like it fell off a lost Neil Young album, the falsetto vocals and guitar textures haunting the track’s gently shuffling rhythms. Perhaps more surprisingly, Looking For A Friend, which also relies on falsetto vocals, recalls Queens of the Stone Age at their most enigmatic. The largely acoustic Lifted takes a moment to find its feet, the percussive elements slowly emerging as Joseph switches between a falsetto chorus and full voice verse. The band evoke the sound of the seventies on woozy rocker No More, another track with a CSNY vibe, although the rose-tinted nostalgia of the lyrics largely goes to prove Henry Rollin’s adage that the present paints the past with gold. The album wraps up with Inside Your Love, a final airy piece that seems to float off on a breeze of picked guitar and hazy vocals, bringing the album to a suitably restrained conclusion.

In an era where AI-smoothed ubiquity seems to be all we can expect from the mainstream, it is heartening to find musicians still content to follow their muse. This self-titled effort from Silverlites is a case in point. Wonderfully organic, it neither languishes in the past nor promises the future, reminding us instead that the secret to a great rock band is the spontaneity that comes from them playing off one another. 

A supergroup shorn of ego, Silverlites have something truly special and wonderfully human to offer. 8.5/10

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