Christian Silva is an enigma. The London-based quartet made some waves with a pair of EPs, Bring His Head (2005) and Break From The Past (2006), previously but 2007 sees Christian Hardy (formerly known as Guy Hardy and formerly the singer for the band Christiansilva) creating his first full-length under the ‘Christian Silva’ moniker. It’s kind of like an E/Eels sort of situation, I gather. Even the least cursory of internet searches yields very little information about Christian (Hardy or Silva), but really it’s this mystery that accounts for a great deal of Onward!’s charm.
The first, and title, track is an immediate indication of the depth of Christian’s talent. An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, he kicks off his album with some majestic piano work and a voice that envelops the listener like a warm spring breeze. As the song progresses, more instruments and more layers of Christian’s vocals are added to the mix, creating a sound that is stately yet slightly restrained. “Onward!” is the lone glimpse of restraint on the entire album, though, and the glam rock elements emerge with the thumping bass line, shrill guitar and incessant tambourine of “Great To Begin”. There is more to Onward! than lounge-style piano and glam rock, however. The listener is pulled in ever-changing directions between tender ballads, prog-rock and flamboyant pop.
Christian can sing in nearly as many voices as instruments he plays. He shows off his crooning skills on tracks such as the lovely, folky “How To Be A Man” or on the wry waltz “Borders”, a song that conjures an image of the singer playing a grand piano in a smoky bar somewhere: “One more night in your bed with your secrets that thrill me/One more night smoking fags, pretending they won’t kill me”. The ballad “Not That We’d Notice” and the introspective “Insects” are done primarily in falsetto. Bohemian Rhapsody-esque “Break From The Past” has Christian nearly spitting lyrics: “Point your finger at my chest again/Go on I dare you, I fucking dare you!”.
Onward! is a very ambitious album for a young artist. Such a project could have easily turned disastrous, but superb songwriting and careful production make Onward! quite a masterpiece of a debut album. With all the pianos, guitars, synthesizers, drums, glockenspiels, tambourines, banjos, violins, and practically any other instrument you can think of, much of the album possesses an inflated (in a good way!) sound. Add to those big sounds Christian’s mosaic of vocal stylings and proclivity for clever lyrics and unpredictability and it’s fairly easy to both predict and expect great things from Christian Silva in 2008 and beyond. Says Christian on his MySpace page: “I am trying my very best to create music that means something to you.” Mission accomplished.
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mp3:> Christian Silva – Borders
mp3:> Christian Siva – Not That We’d Notice
Links
Christian Silva [official site] [myspace] [label]
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Spot on review – delightful to hear some real enthusiasm and original thought regarding Onward rather than just the endless list of comparisons I’ve seen in other reviews. I actually picked up a copy from Christian himself when he played with Peter, Bjorn & John at my uni and I’ve been listening most days since then. it really IS quite a masterpiece and more than anything sets the bar for what I predict will be an illustrious career.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=271912520&s=143444
I heard he got compared to Mika. Ouch.
He’s also been compared to Jeff Buckley, David Bowie, Thom Yorke and Freddie Mercury so I guess you have to decide which reviewer to believe! The Mike comparison was in The Guardian Online, along the lines of ‘if Mika is too camp for you, Christian Silva is the polymath for you.’ Which, having lived with the Christian Silva album for a good few months is kind of nonsense. The Mika album (which I managed to sit through only the once) is full of fluff, excruciatingly obvious pop songs and Euro-Pop production, Onward is something else entirely. I don’t suppose he minds what the comparisons are, he seems to be in a world of his own anyway!