There are only so many times that I can mention Jeniferever, a four piece Swedish export who have paid their dues more than perhaps the more successful Swedish acts (can we say their name without shuddering…The Hives), without feeling like people are clearly being ignorant. ‘Silesia‘, their third full length album, is the follow up to 2009’s ‘Spring Tides‘, an album that received a glowing review from myself and showed the band experiment further from the shoegazing sound that was so obvious in their also fantastic debut ‘Choose A Bright Morning‘ (although, just to show I’m not being biased, I reviewed their EP inbetween and found it to be bitterly disappointing).
I can almost understand to some degree, why this band have had to force their way into peoples hearts. The material on the first record was very ambient, very dreamy, it was perfect if you wanted a soundtrack to a Sunday morning stroll on a hillside but you’d be damned if you wanted something to give you some get up and go. Its follow up addressed that somewhat, a punchier, louder, rawer record, but with this came an alternative sound that you knew would alienate people, and certainly wouldn’t find its way onto British radio stations. In many respects ‘Silesia‘ sees these issues, and pushes the band into a territory that almost demands more people to be attracted to their sound.
The emphasis here is definitely on immediacy. Recent free downloadable track ‘Waifs & Strays‘ has a cutting guitar melody that slices its way through a lush pop sound to create one of the more note-able chorus’ i’ve heard from the band to date, eventually making way for a guitar solo, something I’m glad that the band have continued to include in their music. ‘The Beat Of Our Own Blood‘, once again lush and pop, has a funk feel to it that we haven’t heard from the band before they jump into an imaginative chorus with layers of bright keyboard synth sounds and a guitar play that reminds me of one of my favourite albums from last year by Foals. ‘A Drink To Remember‘ shows old fans that the old band are still in there, it’s slow at times, contemplative, and for the most part emotional and utterly soul moving. While ‘Deception Pass‘, which has been coined as their heaviest track yet, perhaps isn’t heavy, but merely unrelentless, moving at the break neck speeds that we’d expect from a tornado, not a band, with the bass and drum combination refusing to slow even for a second until the last fuzzy notes ring out.
‘Silesia‘ is the record that Jeniferever had to make in order to move forward, it is emotional and shoe gazing at times, it is Jeniferever of old, but it shows a song writing quality to the band, that they have more tricks up their sleeves than they have been willing to put out on the table before now, and with the amount of ideas that we have on this record, surely now is the time for the band to reach the limelight.
5 / 5
