There’s a song on Kill The Silence, about halfway through, that deals with the struggles of band life. And “Halfway Tonight” reasons that with “one more time ee feel like dreamin’.”
Yet at the risk of sounding trite, surely this record is the sound of dreams coming true.
I always like albums that start with no preamble—just straight in. It makes it seem like they’ve got loads to say. Kill The Silence does just that, and about halfway through its first song, “Don’t Turn The Lights On Yet,” it becomes everything that makes Morganway so great. That is to say, it becomes utterly euphoric.
They have such energy about their songs. “Boy On The Train” could have been conventional Americana, but what’s the fun in that? Instead, it hurtles along—way faster than HS2—with guitar and violin solos and the best harmony vocals.
How good is this? Well, put it this way: if “Feels Like Letting Go” were a Larkin Poe song, it’d win a Grammy.
And they know how to change the pace, too. The haunting, piano-based “Edge Of The Sun” is stunning, with a wail of guitar that’s just as impressive.
The title track has a trip-hop vibe, and SJ Mortimer almost sounds fragile—almost.
There’s a foray into blues with “Devil’s Canyon”—a shining light here—and, let’s be honest, on “Goddamn Time” (one of a few sung by Callum Morgan), it feels like “Real Gone Kid” is about to break out.
The harmonies on this record really are gorgeous. “Surrender” underlines it for the millionth time, and you can easily imagine them in a sunset-dappled Laurel Canyon in the late ’60s, making music like “All The Signs Are There.”
They’ve been tagged with that whole “too rock for indie, too indie for country” nonsense, but, like their obvious contemporaries The Wandering Hearts, they just get on with making fantastic music.
Like the last one, “We Sing”, a duet with Alyssa Bonagura, and it’s fitting, too. It’s a ballad about being on the road, with Morgan concluding, “This is the way I’ve always wanted to go.”
For this band, music is all that matters.
We began with a quote from “Halfway Tonight,” so we’ll end with one too:
“I thought we were good, just never learned how.”
How about extremely?
Rating: 8.5/10
