Altsounds - Golden Silvers- True Romance [Album]

Ever heard one of those albums that make you feel that you’re on a completely different planet then the rest of the world or that you feel like you’ve taken some peyote or other hallucinogenic drug while listening to it?

This is how I felt while listening to Golden Silvers’ album "True Romance". When "True Romance" starts with ‘Another Universe’ which describes various characters throughout the song, the lead singer is going through what I can guess is a movie marathon with his eyes kept open like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. I know I’m in for some sort of weird trip!

The title track then seems to turn into a version of Lewis Carrol’s Alice In Wonderland’s Mad Hatter Tea Party scene (the lyric of ‘tea, wine and valentines’ proves my point!) with a mixture of sixties free love! The information I found on Golden Silvers cited Buzzcocks and Ian Dury as influences. Given the various styles throughout the album I would like to add Beach Boys and possibly MGMT to that list due to the psychedelica working alongside the use of harmonized backing vocals throughout the tracks on the album.

Golden Silvers do like to be ‘unconventional’ in style but there are moments where I feel their chance to break into the mainstream is starting to show such as 'Magic Touch' and 'Arrows Of Eros' being about love and loss, 'Queen Of The 21st Century(Album)' is about a struggling artist.

Musically the band give the 60’s vibe a resurgence with the bounciness of the songs that you realise unbeknownst to yourself humming the songs and getting what I like to call the ‘Pink So What syndrome’ where the songs will remain stuck in your head for days until you feel like screaming ‘GET OUT OF MY HEAD!’ However unlike the Pink song, in this instance it’s less of an annoyance!

Lyrically it’s crazy as I’ve mentioned but that doesn’t matter. In a weird way it feels like you’re hearing various stories and any good music should also have that vital gripping quality. If you can grip the listener with both the music and the lyrical content then it’s a very good sign.

A very enjoyable album that keeps uncovering new surprises with every listen!