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    The Phantom Tollbooth 2000/The Silent Music Club
    The Silent Music Club — The Sirens of Silence EP cover

    The Silent Music Club

    The Sirens of Silence EP

    (1999)

    Reviewed by Todd Ballard

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    Label Lowercase RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2000
    electronicindustrialnew wavesynth pop

    The Silent Music Club is an interesting blend of New Wave and pseudo-industrial pop music. Interestingly, the album boasts a mid 80's, Pet Shop Boys versus Depeche Mode sound mixed with a more contemporary industrial edge somewhat like early Dietiphobia.

    The album concept is the thought provoking novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The tale is of a man named Montag, who leaves off his futuristic job as a "fireman" who burns books, to study them and question the intelligence of his wife, Mildred, and the masses to which he once aspired. Bradbury's story is perhaps one of the best classic sci-fi novels written, and for that the album is all the better. The lyrics and vocals seem to support the transformation of Montag and do the novel justice. But musically the EP is perhaps a good start at best. It doesn't reach the level of professionalism that this genre boasts. Perhaps in future recordings the mix can be compiled with more change ups, stronger keyboards, tighter drums, and a lot more raw energy. The screaming vocals hardly match what is going on in the instrumentation. Perhaps the screaming could go altogether, and those soft "Personal Jesus" vocals could prevail and push The Silent Music Club into a position where they won't remain so silent.

    2.5 tocks

    Other coverage for this album

    The Phantom Tollbooth 2000Reviewed by Daren AllderThis maxi-EP from the mysterious Silent Music Club is inspired by Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 novel-- a future vision of a society where books are forbidden by a totalitarian regime. The Sirens of Silence captures much of the dense, nightmarish quality of the story through dark, relentless, sequenced music, topped with distorted shouted words. The lyrics are twisted, mostly negative,…

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