By Monk
Formerly lead singer with Canadian proggies The Slyde, Nate Silva has embarked on a solo career with a debut album that sees him pulling together all his divergent yet inherent musical influences into an album that offers a sort of weird dynamically undynamic, consistently inconsistent, hesitatingly unhesitating amalgam of surprising diverse yet unified styles into a dynamic and versatile collection of songs that profiles every aspect of his ability as songwriter and deliverer of great tunage.
Starting off with a surprising acoustic, almost countrified intro, Silva quickly evolves his sound into the sort of shoegazing indie-pop meets angst-rock that likes of ÜR’s good friend Baz Francis do so well. This is a thematic that continues throughout that album, albeit with heavier interjections, such as on the alt-rock opening grooves of ‘The Camera Chases’ and more so ‘Come Down’, which evolves into a sweetly hedonistic slice of heart-on-the-sleeve emo-pop and subsequently the laconic ‘Said And Done’ with its acoustic baseline exemplifying the stronger qualities of Silva’s songwriting talents.
Then, of course, the bastid goes and turns everything on its its head with the acerbic diesel-fuelled punk of ‘Burn!’, which lives up its title with its fiery intensity and serves as a taster of what is to come in the more upbeat second half of the album, via the suitably acidic ‘Cauterize’.
While very obviously cognizant of his prog rock background, Silva has delivered an album that is a deeply personal reflection of not only where he has come from but where he stands now. In the process, he has provided us with a suitably entertaining soundtrack to that transitional journey.
- ‘The Chase‘ is released today (Friday 3 May).
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.