Nipaluna/Hobart band Silver Fleet Ships are signed to the tremendous Meanjin/Brisbane label False Peaks Records, and this is a sure guarantee of the quality you can except in their debut album ‘Before Never, After Forever’.
It’s an album which bleeds atmosphere from every pore: statuesque and gilded with an Antarctic chill exacerbated by the sharp expressive guitar riffs that thread their way through every track.
Opening track ‘Before Never’ is a smooth and floating entry that is delivered over a rambling piano: there is something of the classic ‘Nilsson Sings Newman’ album in the balladry and gentleness.
‘Wide Open’ is a wake up: thundering instruments create a heartbeat before the storm subsides over a wandering bass and then back again like an ebb tide. The reflective vocals deal with dark themes:
I’ve got these black and blue bruises that you left upon my body
I’ve got your palm prints still hanging around my neck
Oh you put me through a wall and you put me through so easy
Crushing all my bones like tiny little twigs
So take a look
Take a look around
You take a look
There’s nothing to be found
Don’t be evil
‘Surprised’ is an immense scything, euphoric track that has genetic links to eighties bands like Killing Joke and The Fixx with a rich textural element redolent of The Cure. The opening chords are dark and ominous, the pace frenetic and the vocals urgent and passionate as the track soars into the atmosphere. Echoing, delayed guitars shimmer through the mix, rippling like an ebb tide as the track picks up the pace.
The lyrics reflect the darkness in the sounds:
A hole in my hand
Where everything falls through
A hole in my hand
Where everyone falls through
Chasing oblivion
Like my tail
Pull the rope
Tighten the chain
The track comes with an enigmatic performance video shot and edited by Rohan Sharma which adds to the delicious gothic overtones of the track as the band members appear mysterious and anonymous:
‘Do Nothin” continues the post punk sparseness filled with atmosphere and a stately grace that typify this band. The track draws in elements of the deep southern Antarctic chill, coupled with melodies and delivery that are like a comforting burning fire in the hearth.
A motorik beat introduces the track creating a driving thrum throughout, while the vocals are cold and distant, but slowly and surely the other instruments seep up through the floorboards with a throbbing bass and soothing synth bedrock with a hint of rippling guitars. The vocals become impassioned, before a sky-scraping chorus rips the soundscape asunder.
The lyrics are a bleak and vivid expression of dissonance and ambivalence:
There are no more thoughts
They have all dissolved
In the back of my mouth
Where the pills go in
And I hold my pills close
Hold em close to my chest
Cos I feel nothing
And I do nothing
I do nothing
Always at the edges are blips and pops that scatter the field, the song twists and turns like a silken veil in a tornedo, never cliched or obvious in arrangement as the track ranges across a vast terrain before slowly fading away in a wash. It’s an epic track: dark and haunting.
Spiro Noutsatos’s vocals in ‘Gimme Moonlight’ are expressive and passionate in a song that is scything and animated moving from moments of thunder to the eye of the storm with a swirling organ sound that whirls like a carnival soundtrack.
Piano again drives the very heart of ‘Everyone Wants My Soul’ while the vocals are spat out in a heated anger as a contrapuntal beat.
‘Gemini’ reveals another side to the band – a restrained and haunting opening as the echoed vocals enter over a brooding synth bass, a hammond organ sound floating like a ghostly veil through the ether. As the rest of the band enters, the sound build up like a burning fuse that erupts into a scaling chorus. It’s an epic anthemic track that prowls and circles the listener, ebbing and flowing with an intensity.
The lyrics deal with a deception and betrayal – the twin faces of Gemini:
You and I don’t need a reason
Who you gonna fool next
Waiting on a reason
You and I don’t need the bullshit
Who we gonna fool next?
Gemini Deceiver
This is the sound of a mature, seasoned band: an epic single that is statuesque and bold. The accompanying video shot by Sam Cooper is fittingly enigmatic and immersive as the band performs in monochromatic framed scenes:
Final track ‘After Forever’ is the book end to the opening track giving the album its title. It starts off like an Eric Satie piece: naked expressive piano with yearning vocals entering.
‘Before Never, After Forever’ is a dark and ominous album taken as whole – each track a varied presentation of a degree of pessimism and gloom and yet there is a spark of resilience and hope. A fundamental basis is a meeting of opposites – between a desire for anonymity and the avoidance of pain, and yet a need to be heard. Noutsatos says:
I hope anyone that hears it, hears themself in it and is able to relate to it. I hope it helps you feel less alone.
The very geographical landscapes of their native isle seems to inform every sound of the instruments and the delivery of the vocals: brutal, raw and yet so beautiful. At times the economic and judicious use of the instruments give a certain sparseness where it is the spaces in-between the notes create the emotions, at other times there is an euphoric sweep that uplifts and buoys the soul.
The album’s delicate artwork was designed by the multi-talented Bek Binnie, of nipaluna/Hobart hardcore act Threats.
‘Before Never, After Forever’ is out now and can be streamed and downloaded via the link below and here.
Formed in 2019, Silver Fleet Ships is an indie rock band from Hobart, Tasmania. Drawing inspiration from the textured sounds of Spoon, the atmospheric tones of Low, the post-punk echoes of The Cure, and the dynamic intensity of Queens of the Stone Age, their music carries the introspective lyricism of Death Cab for Cutie and the raw energy of Unwound, creating a unique blend of melody and grit.
Led by Spiro Noutsatos (also in follow, previously a member of Teens/Slaughterhäus Surf Cult), Silver Fleet Ships have a strong DIY recording ethos, an extension of Spiro’s work as a recording & mixing engineer for other Tasmanian bands (Dvrkworld, Slaughterhäus Surf Cult, Nice House, Legal Noise). This hands-on approach allowed the band to craft every sound on their forthcoming debut album with care and intention. The result is a deeply personal record created by an atmosphere of experimentation, capturing the raw, unpolished emotion that defines the band’s music.
Live, Silver Fleet Ships are Spiro Noutsatos, Mathew Olivier, Ryan Lynch and Jason Graham.
Feature Photograph: Rohan Sharma
