New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Australian indie art rockers The Silverbeets have announced they will be releasing their 'Halcyon Days' album this autumn. Offering a taste of things to come, the quartet present the lead track 'We Matted Once Upon a Time', along with accompanying video.
With a rich dark green sound interspersed with multi-coloured stems, their non-formulaic style is distinct. Like their forthcoming 8-track full-length album, this single evoke the spirit of artists such as Can, They Might be Giants and XTC.
Formed in 2014, The Silverbeets hail from Hobart, Tasmania - the small Australian island state at the bottom of the world. This relative isolation has led the band to craft an idiosyncratic sound that borrows from luminary rock acts like Pink Floyd, The Byrds,
David Bowie, Radiohead, The Pixies, Queen, Fleet Foxes,
Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Cave and Neil Young, among others.
The Silverbeets consist of Farnz Cordeaux (rhythm guitar, vocals),
Jamie Scott (lead guitar,
vocals), Nigel Hope (bass) and Bill O'Brien (drums) but their recorded sound is also heavily influenced by their "5th member", producer and multi-instrumentalist, Ernie Oppenheimer.
"This is a song about how government, or people in power, once treated people with some common decency, like we mattered. However all semblance of caring seems to have completely gone by the wayside and all we have left is the greed of man, the greed of those in power who know how to use it against the 99% Viva la revolution!" says frontman Farnz Cordeaux.
"This is the band's third multi-track release - we are starting to show who we are. By this we mean that only now, looking back at our all our releases, can people start to get a handle on what we are trying to do. We don't sit in one style, we don't just write one mood of music but instead are reaching to push ourselves to show a range of human emotions and incorporate different musical styles while doing so".
The 'Halcyon Days' was recorded at Bad
Radio Studios and Urban Fringe Compound between mid-2019 and mid-2020. All songs were mixed and mastered by Ernie O at Urban Fringe Compound.
In 2016, The Silverbeets debuted with their 'Purple Stems' EP, rated among the year's best releases by the NBTMusicRadio. The band followed up with a ripper cover of
Simon & Garfunkel's 'We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin' (2016) and their 'Stay Tuned' LP in 2018, an epic homage to the concept album (also rated the year's 16th best album by NBTMusicRadio). In January 2020, they released 'I've Got to Get Away (on an Hawaiian Holiday)', a polemic tune on the lack of government leadership in handling the fires in Australia.
As of
September 21, 'We Mattered (Once Upon a Time)' will be available across online stores such as Apple
Music and streaming platforms such as Spotify. The full 'Halcyon Days' album will be released on November 13, both digitally and on CD. It can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp.
Farnz Cordeaux - rhythm guitar vocals, keys
Ernie Oppenheimer - bass
Joe Haley - lead guitar
Konrad Park - drums
Recorded at Bad
Radio Studios and Urban Fringe Compound
Produced by Ernie Oppenheimer
Front and back cover artwork photos by Micah Kleinert
Photos by
Craig Opie
