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RTR FM Album Review

8. April 2008 | No Comments

from RTR FM, Perth…

Silver City Highway - Everything is Breaking

Author
Simone Ruggiero
Published
Tuesday 8th April

Hitch a ride down the ‘Silver City Highway’ with this seven piece outfit and your bound for a beautifully atmospheric journey. ‘Everything is Breaking’ takes you to destinations where blues, country and rock combine to create a conceptually connected album. With a band backed with established musicians and one that was recorded by Aaron Cupples who has worked alongside The Drones and Dan Kelly, this CD is inundated with success.

The album is widely theatrical providing powerful vocals and an intense instrumental score. Front man, Fergus McAlpin delivers soothing and sometimes narcotic sounding vocals, in moments reflecting the earlier work of Nick Cave. McAlpin honours Cave with deep and engaging vocals often bordering on spoken words. The title track of the album delivers a dreamlike vibe and sets the standard for the rest of the CD. You are taken on a ride with Silver City Highway and only released after the completion of nine songs. Who knew that country music could sound so haunting, but with a track like ‘Dear Elizabeth’, Silver City Highway prove that their much more than any other Australian rock/country outfit. The eeriness of the album is largely due to the harmonica and pedal which feature heavily in all tracks and in turn have enormous impact over the overall sound.

With a Melbourne soul, Silver City Highway have collaborated a superb collection of songs for their new CD. Entering into a blend of country, blues and rock genres the album achieves a very pleasing symphony of sound. Join the boys from Silver City Highway and hop on the band wagon.

Silver City - PBS FM Single Launch Review

2. April 2008 | No Comments

From pbsfm.org.au

 Silver City Highway@ Northcote Social Club, 22/3/08

I first stumbled upon the haunting and hypnagogic strains of SCH last summer. It was at the tail end of Sunday sadness, during some feel -better beers at the Labour and I was very much instantaneously won over. Soothing yet totally exhilarating, this unsigned side- project screams with understated potential. They gig around Fitzroy haunts such as Old Bar, venues conducive to this band’s casual yet colossal charm. One of Silver City’s greatest strengths is an easy, yet oscillating intimacy with their audience and subsequently Silver City is suited to smaller venue’s like these but to witness the full glory of the band in its seven- piece, orchestral incarnation; a venue like the Northcote Social club is ideal.

On Saturday night the sound was heady and full and despite the band seeming slightly terse at points, this dynamic worked for rather than against them. From the Johnny Cash black of guitarist Ryan Nelson and front man Fergus McAlpin, to the wife beater clad double bassist, SCH is living proof of what an aesthetically and musically diverse beast country music can be. The Northcote band room had the somnolent, sleepy atmosphere of an opium den, created by Seamus’ psychedelic sound effects and Nelson’s plethora of pedals and intuitive guitar work.

Silver City Highway’s primary skill exists in their ability to commune and retract, to create psychic landscapes and occupy them entirely, so the listener is inside with them and locked out simultaneously. Which sounds seriously contradictory and a bit tripped out, man; but this is the riddle of the sphinx which makes Silver City Highway such a special band. It also helps that they boast one of the best drummers in Melbourne, the ever- beatifically- beaming Simon Edwards. He’s technically fantastic, but it’s all in the expression; he looks like he’s genuinely journeying into some kind of state of transcendence.

I don’t like to bandy the word around, but bliss is the real currency of the Silver City performance. On this evening, the band was introspective than usual and seemingly more serious; when Fergus broke into a smile, it was downright dazzling. The solemnity dissipated when Nelson planted a smacker of a kiss on Fergus’ cheek after an archipelago number that in my opinion didn’t quite survive the acoustics of the room, nor do his pretty majestic voice justice. 

For Mid- Easter weekend, the turn out was very good, even if the audience was largely made up of the walking wounded. They delivered a controlled dosage of raw, narcotic sound, which reached a chilling crescendo point at I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back again. I’m hoping that they always stay this close to this dark country edge, but move a little closer to the forefront in the very near future.

Rave Magazine Single Review

26. February 2008 | No Comments

 From Rave Magazine

SILVER CITY HIGHWAY – Everything Is Breaking

(Independent)

Due to a continued increased interest in darkly intense faux-country bands, Silver City Highway is seeking fans for their take on this distinctly Australian classic sound. This is a fantastic opportunity to join the fandom of a thriving genre, with recent successes from contemporaries like The Drones, Skipping Girl Vinegar, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side, The Devastations and even the Bad Seeds. If spooky emotive rock that sounds like angry thunder galloping rapidly across a blackened country sky is what you’re after in a band, Silver City Highway is the place to get it! As a fan of this band, you will start on a relatively small amount, with just this one-track single, but you can look forward to expanding your portfolio rapidly, with a debut album arriving in the next few weeks. Positions exist for both Full Time fans and Part Time fans, splitting your fan time between Silver City Highway and other bands containing SCH members, including Redfish Bluegrass Band and the excellent Subaudible Hum. Benefits include production from Aaron Cupples (Dan Kelly, The Drones), a great new source of country-and-western-strength fucked-up-family lyrics and an overwhelming feeling that you’ve been out to an intimidatingly creepy ghost town without leaving your seat.

Drum Magazine Single Review

17. February 2008 | No Comments

SILVER CITY HIGHWAY Everything Is Breaking IndependentActually, if the Mime Set really want to get their Drones/Seeds on, they should take some cues from these fellow Melbournites. The lonesome pedal steel and Hammond organ means that at times it becomes almost a dead ringer for The Blackeyed Susans - no bad thing - and if the reverb drenching the twanging guitars and the harmonica in the coda gets a bit cavernous by the end of the song, it’s still powerfully evocative. My appetite for the forthcoming full-length has been comprehensively whet.

Duggup Single Review

1. November 2007 | No Comments

From duggup

Well Fergus, never let it be said that we don’t do our bit to help and the fact that you have a killer sound helps a lot. I love the keyboards and damn that’s a lot of guitars you have there. “Everything Is Breaking” reminds me of Stan Ridgeway and Warren Zevon, everything about this track just makes me smile ( a touch more vocal in the mix would be nice). There is a strong country/blues feel here but the production is just epic. (Did I mention the thing about a tad more vocals in the mix… yes?)

Have a listen to “ Dear Elizabeth” as well, it starts out as an old school country talking blues but it really kicks once they get going, I think some of the band start channelling Deep Purple towards the end. I think I like these guys.

I popped it on the MP3 player a day or two back and it is definitely a keeper. I am sorry that Fergus didn’t let us all know that the gig was on until after the event, but I will be keeping an eye out for them

Warmly recommended. Great Guitars and keys.

Everything is Breaking Single Review

31. October 2007 | No Comments

SINGLE REVIEW
SILVER CITY HIGHWAY
EVERYTHING IS BREAKING / DEAR ELIZABETH

By Simone beat magazine 31 0ct. 2007

The beloved local boys of Silver City Highway launched their debut double A side last week - and here it is, all grimy and warm.  Silver City do their best to honor the dearly departed ghost of Nick Cave, with moody and morbid lyrical warnings delivered in murderous strains.  But the layers here are cinescopic, with harmonicas and guitars rushing through the song like desert winds and shimmering heat of rhythm in the far distance.  Beautifully atmospheric, beautifully recorded.

Silver City Highway Single Review

12. August 2007 | No Comments

From PBSFM.org.au….

Silver City Highway – Everything is Breaking and Dear Elizabeth

Imagine a swirl of metal filings gathering on top of a blank sheet of paper with a magnet underneath and you’ll get a feel for the imagistic first track on Silver City Highway’s single, Everything Is Breaking. This mammoth 7-piece country act channels the windy psych-fugue of an Antarctic aurora.  The band has a rock, psych and country lineage which actually works better than it sounds on paper — especially live. 

The two-track single released early in November makes a crash with a prominent slide guitar, organs and double bass. Guitars echo like a memory with the rest of the band up front for their un-radio friendly five-minute tunes.  The second song; Dear Elizabeth, changes the mood from the isolated image of a red-dirt bordered crossroads, to a heartier sounding ballad, which once again gives way to the thumping universal swirl of reverberating, polished wood. 

Composed of members from Redfish, Sub audible Hum and The Union, Silver City ways always considered a side project, but their touring regime testifies otherwise.  Be on the lookout at the Old Bar for one of the most difficult bands to move around. It’s cosmic.

 

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