Silverman - 'Speed Of Live Part Two' (Uglyman)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
The now-tired issue of whether we should be allowed to access free music from the internet has been a hotly-contested one. Whilst most artists are content to take a comfortable place on the fence, Silverman are great ambassadors for the promotional power of the MP3. For, without the Internet, this band may never have taken off.
Although they confess that announcing their e-popularity sounds decidedly like a desperate attempt to 'give the impression that someone gives a shit', they genuinely have accumulated a large web-based audience. Indeed, so much so, that they released 'Speed Of Life Part One', a collection of their most popular downloads, exclusively via their website as a thank-you to their fan-base.
So, no - strictly speaking - this is not a debut record. Not that you'd have guessed from the amount of focus and talent on-show. Vocalist Anna Dennis, amazingly for someone who has had no prior history in bands, possesses those angelic tones reminiscent of Tori Amos or Portishead's Beth Gibbons, even managing to transcend such influences sufficiently enough to form her own style: one so soaring and inviting that it demands attention with every word.
Themes wander slowly and ambiguously through sex, pain, death and back again via some quality wordplay ('Eat me alive/Tell me how I taste/Do I taste alright?') and flashes of inspiration suggesting that scratching beneath Silverman's surface will reveal not a hollow space, but, instead, a rich well of ideas... It's just a shame that some of them haven't quite been tapped into fully yet, as adding slightly more flair and experimentation to the mix would perhaps provide 'Speed Of Life Part Two' with the depth it lacks.
Yet, such a criticism may be healed, come further experience - for example, strong as Dennis' voice is, so far it lacks that malice that makes Beth Gibbons so exciting, or the spark of Amos' special eccentricity, possibly polished to such a degree that when she does let lose to sing 'Fuck you, fuck me, fuck every fucking body', it's slightly disconcerting.
This is just one side of the coin, however; Anna may well be a notable new arrival, but co-star Martin Williams also provides necessary musical-nouse and experience (he was previously in Nilon Bombers), creating soundscapes that fit his partner's vocals somewhat perfectly. The largely acoustic, occasionally trip-hop and always forlorn tones hark back to the glories of Arab Strap, Massive Attack and Sneaker Pimps, most powerfully so on 'Secret Baby' and 'Don't Leave This World Without Me'.
It can only be a positive sign that such an act can make the transition from cyberspace into the real world of music, providing a route into the mainstream that's more internet café than it is toilet-circuit; it may still be an unconventional path, and one that may put off the purists, but when there's this much promise on offer, confining acts such as Silverman to just your hard-drive would prove a huge mistake.
Artists in this article: Silverman
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