Stephen Bailey - Silo

This is my first review for Soundblab and what a great album to start off with. An album that if I had heard it last year would have been in my top ten albums of the year, I can’t stop playing it.

This is Stephen Bailey’s first solo project, a departure from his day job as lead singer of Mt. Mountain, a Heavy Psych band from Perth, Australia in the vein of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions In The Sky. This is a much more poppy affair.

The first track, 'Demure', has a Krautrock feel to it with haunting vocals reminiscent of Bradford Cox’s (Deerhunter) solo efforts and had me hooked.  The whole album has a familiar quality to it with strummed guitar, at one point in the song 'Josephine' reminding me of The House of Love. Other songs definitely reference Galaxie 500.

'Sub Zero', another highlight, starts with keyboards and haunting vocals and as the song progresses more layers are added, drums, more keyboards giving the whole song an ethereal feel, this guy knows what he is doing in the studio.

'Silo' is a beautiful little instrumental interlude which breaks the album up nicely leading into 'Take It Up' then 'Mr. Fair' pays homage to Laurel Canyon in the same vein as Fleet Foxes.

The last track 'The Folons' ends the album nicely, with a rolling piano chord sequence that can be heard for 1 minute 30 seconds.

At 31 minutes it's not the longest, but so compelling are the tracks that it just makes me want to listen all over again, definitely recommended.