Golden Silvers - Arrows Of Eros (Young And Lost Club)
UK release date: 14 July 2008
For a band only just on the verge of releasing their debut single, the Golden Silvers have certainly been racking up the column inches, earning plaudits from pretty much the full gamut of music publications.
But then, they did win a slot on Glastonbury's Other Stage last month, having suitably impressed at the festival's New Talent competition. Horrifyingly, Michael Eavis has compared them to both Oasis and Coldplay, but before you aneurysm at the thought of such a hybrid, fear not: he was wrong.
That said, if you're searching for easy comparisons it would be difficult to be right. Golden Silvers are an indie band (whatever that means now...) without a guitar, but mercifully pretty much the anti-Keane, their songs witty and lyrical, danceably feel-good in place of wrist-slashingly morose. They themselves struggle for an accurate definition, whilst the Independent doesn't even try: ‘fairy-tale indie-pop', they branded it, which means nothing.
So anyway, Arrows of Eros. It's a decent track - perhaps not quite as essential as the various hype merchants would suggest, but it's certainly one of the more interesting releases of late. The decision to opt for synthesizers over six-strings was a good one, the quirky Hammer Horror keyboard stabs supplying a foreground hook that compensates for the slightly listless Reverend and the Makers-esque vocals (both bands share a similar lyrical concern with the modern malaise, and a similarly flat, half-spoken manner of delivering it).
But hey, what good's a lukewarm appraisal in the wake of all the fervent adoration: you're destined to be hearing this all summer long, and by the end you'll likely love it. Arrows of Eros indeed, apparently.