Silverbacks
Archive Material
Release Date: Jan 21, 2022
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, New Wave/Post-Punk Revival, Post-Punk
Record label: Full Time Hobby
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Archive Material from Amazon
Album Review: Archive Material by Silverbacks
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
When Silverbacks dropped their debut, Fad, they stood out from the post-punk revival crowd with a kinetic, needlelike sound filled with curveballs like haunting ambience and dancefloor grooves. On their second LP, the Dublin quintet's strengths show no signs of waning. The kitchen sink approach remains just as enjoyable as ever, with tracks like Rolodex City sounding like The Clash covering Speaking in Tongues-era Talking Heads and Carshade blooming as an intriguing soundscape instrumental.
Based on rating 7/10
The follow up to their debut album Fad (2020), Archive Material was written in the early months of 2020 when the band were unable to fully tour their latest release. With Gilla Band bassist Daniel Fox back on production duties, the record is a collection of cleanly produced songs that tap into the raw nerves of existing in such an unusual time, peppered with humorous, macabre observations like "I saw death in a necktie" on the eponymous opening track, or lines like "The decline of western civilization / I read it on the back of a t-shirt" on the deeply sarcastic "Econymo". It's a similar cacophony of eclectic guitar sounds, swaggering beats and wry lyrics.
Based on rating 6.5/10
Released a year and a half after the Irish five-piece art rockers' debut Fad, Archive Material sees Silverbacks continuing their effort to defy categorization by creating sonic pastiches from fragments of widely varying genres into a jovial racket with wild shifts in dynamics and tempo. At their best, Silverbacks' musical touchstones include the jumpy rhythms of Bodega and the buzz-rock of Deerhoof played with the nervous energy of Talking Heads mixed with the snarky attitude of Cake. If you like the touchstones, you will certainly like some of Archive Material, but probably not all.
Opinion: Very Good
The 'p' word may be starting to get tiresome with every gruesome mention in our day-to-day lives. But with 'Archive Material', Dublin quintet Silverbacks have used the pandemic as a prism to document the monotony and strangeness we've all encountered since March 2020 in an amiable fashion. Having toured with Girl Band after the success of their first few releases, everything was going to plan for Silverbacks pre-Covid.
'Archive Material'
is available now