Silver Jews

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Has anyone heard this? I know it's not new or relevant or anything, but due to my latest trend of picking up anything that I was too young to appreciate at the time. This album is mind-blowing. I actually like it better than any of Pavement's stuff (coincidentally, it's also much more accessible) and I dig Berman's laid-back, almost as if I'm just talking like Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen or some other guy like that -type vocals. The opening track of the album is among the best opening tracks that I've ever heard. Hell, the opening line to the CD is one of the best I've heard. It's a perfect record for just driving along the the middle of nowhere through a bunch of cornfields. Yeah, cornfields.

 

It also speaks to me; none of my favourite singers could ever sing either.

 

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

This is one of those bands I've always meant to get into, but never got around to it.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Every review I read of the album before I got it said that the Silver Jews were just a band you listened to in between Pavement albums, and that this was the album that made it the other way around.

 

That's about the best possible thing to say about it, as this album removed the "side project" label.

[Anorak 0]

Nice surprise to see this album pimped, I picked it up myself last year having heard a couple of songs on compilation albums. You could possibly describe them as half way between alt country and indie but they avoid sounding overly familiar because the guitar work avoids cliche and the lyrics are brilliant from start to finish. It all sounds so laid back and effortless but the consistantly good songs manage a great diversity of mood and atmosphere in a subtle way which lays an effective platform for the lyrics. And yes, it is a great opening track as well, its one of those albums where the opening and closing tracks just seem to fit so right.