by Sean Fennell (@seanrfennell)
This band sounds like that one, that band sounds like this one, which is really just derivative of those other bands. This is a hole into which music critics often giddily dive headfirst. Fad, the new record from Dublin’s Silverbacks, practically begs you to do it. “Fad 95,” the album’s pseudo-title track, is a referential gumbo, alluding a couple times to that one slinky, slacker, Stockton band cited in probably one of seven indie rock reviews (stats not fact-checked), but Fad isn’t cosplay, and that’s important. It may remind you of a whole host of post-punk/indie rock bands, but it won’t be easy to pinpoint exactly who and when. It’s how Silverbacks take these influences, cut them to pieces, and put them back together again that makes Fad such an impressive collage and an especially exciting debut record.
Silverbacks are new, but they are not young, an important distinction. Built around the lynchpin of brothers Daniel and Killian O’Kelly, Silverbacks have spent time kicking around the Dublin scene, seeing shows, writing songs, living life, and stealing everything that works best. It's right there in the very beginning of the record, “Every punk trick in the book,” sings frontman Daniel O’Kelly on “Dunkirk”. Not only do they know all the tricks, they’re going to use and abuse them, flipping the punk-rock bag upside down and shaking out every last crumb. “Dunkirk,” a post-punk playground, replete with tempo-changes, slinky layered guitars, tempered explosives, and a back beat to hold it all together, is quite an introduction.
The aforementioned “Fad ‘95” is even better. The jazzy little drum beat, the sing-talking, the shirking, tongue-in-cheek charm. It all comes together wonderfully. Naming your album Fad and then naming a song on that album “Fad ‘95” and then referencing nineties laziest lords Pavement with a well-placed “career, career, career” (or, “Korea” for the phonetically inclined) is spot-on in the most wonderful way. Dublin’s rock scene is having one of music’s most surprising moments - this is the one and only time I’ll mention Fontaines D.C. - and “Fad ‘95” steers gleefully into the curve.
Fad isn’t all snark, in-jokes and spin-offs though, most is genuinely inspired. Again, much of this has to do with how willing Silverbacks are to be both self-effacing and genuine. This comes across even better on the songs when bassist Emma Hanlon takes over vocal duties. On “Up The Nurses,” Hanlon arrives sauntering out of a pub at closing; loose and effortless with a hint of late-night abandon. “I could be the one to call you late at night on the telephone,” she sings, immediately slicing this intentionally saccharine line to bits with the delightfully flippant, “You could be the one to tell me I’m out of control”. This is very much her song on the record, her wry, honest delivery holding some of the more explosive elements of the band at bay. It’s not a coincidence that this is one of the only songs not to resist a raucous post-punk breakdown and shows a band willing to resist formula.
Formula works though and overthinking doesn’t. Thus comes “Klub Silberrucken,” with Hanlon in the lead once again. This time she’s not alone, her voice sucked up into a whirlwind of curly riffs, alien reverb, and misty harmony. All good stuff, but ultimately, just window dressing for the finale; a groovy, pacing, two-handed breakdown where Hanlon and O’Kelly trade off acerbic one-liners with dead-pan resignation. “One sweet day // I’ll be right you’ll be wrong,” sings Hanlon. “Don’t fight the feeling // I’m the one whose wasting his precious time,” responds O’Kelly, less winning the argument then ending it one way or another.
Not all this post-punk prodding lends itself to the band’s strengths. Their silly-putty style doesn’t really make for the most cohesive album. At least not in the “visionary,” can’t possibly listen on shuffle type cohesion. Which is fine - albums don’t have to be novels - but it does make the decision to include three instrumental tracks a little perplexing. They aren’t bad, per say - the bad-guy-comes-to-town western twang of “Madra Uisce '' is actually quite good - but, as a trio, they feel a little superfluous. “Just In The Band” on the other hand, is more of an outright miss. Its repeated riff, call and response vocals, and abrasive, flat mix wear like ill-fitting shoes, a clunky attempt at a style that doesn’t fit their particular Dublin City sound. “Just In The Band” is an all-out attack, when Silverbacks find much more success ducking and weaving, the mouse rather than the cat.
This is a debut album from a band with real potential to be, well maybe not a fad, but whatever the equivalent of a fad is for a creatively brimming punk band in 2020. This was their record to throw shit against the wall, and a lot of it stuck. If they choose one song as their beacon, let it be “Muted Gold”. Between the punchy little riffs, Hanlon and O’Kelly’s seesawing vocals, and the sweltering, danceable breakdown, “Muted Gold” is a distillation of everything exciting about the band. It’s somewhere between Car Seat Headrest’s studio chicanery, the worldbeat of Fear of Music-era Talking Heads, and Deeper’s knifing guitar volleys. In short, it’s everything you want out of a debut record and more.