The Silver Doors - The Silver Doors ( PHRC-012)

It isn’t often that I come across a truly new sound, but I have to say that within a track or two of The Silver Doors’ eponymous album, I realized that I had stumbled across something truly new, fairly unique, and wonderfully exciting.

I like to think of their sound as a sound of the sixties, but a combination of the 1960s, from which they take psychedelic and rock inspirations, and the 1860s, from which they draw on roots sounds and old-time vibes. The Band did a similar sort of experiment back in the day, but whereas Levon and the boys were all about turning their backs on the progressive sounds of their day, here, The Silver Doors practically revel in it.

The result is an album of songs that run from the folky to the freakish and from the fragile to the frantic. The opener, “Redeemer,” sets up a neat roots-rock sound, the electric violin weaving in and out of a raw, alt-rock backdrop. “Shattered” is an understated and spacious blend of folk and harder-edged sounds. “Legwork” is an indie-rock hoedown in spiralling out of control, and “Gone” is graceful, grand, and almost classical in its finess.

What a great sound, and what a great album. If you want to know what mainstream music might have sounded like had Fate put its foot down a different leg of the trousers of time, then this is it. But it didn’t, so The Silver Doors will have to remain a cult secret for more discerning music fans. I’m okay with that; I suspect that they might be, too.

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