Silverbullit, ”Arclight” (MVG 151)
Scandinavian release date: November 24.

Since its inception rock and roll has shown two main tendencies: on the one hand a bias towards direct, physical expression, and on the other one towards the ambient and foggy. Stooges, punk rock, Black Flag are some examples of the former tendency, while psychedelic 60s rock, Brian Eno and Spacemen 3 represents the latter. With their third album ”Arclight”, Silverbullit merges these two directions into a new, highly original musical hybrid of finest quality. Razor sharp and spatious at the same time, ”Arclight” takes the listener on a journey into the heart of darkness with New Order, My Bloody Valentine, D.A.F., Cabaret Voltaire and early The Cure as their fellow travellers.

Starting with the single ”Run”, the album is relentlessly driven forward, with a tight motor beat reminiscent of kraut rockers Neu!. While Jukka Rintamäki's loop-like bass figure keeps the song steadily on the freeway at high speed, Jon Ölmeskog makes it leave the ground with athmospheric, almost transcendental electronic harmonies, which perfectly matches Simon Olsson's desperate but confident words about escape. Following ”Run” is the dark, beautiful ”Only Gold”, a song that touches upon the feeling of alienation not only in your own country and family but even towards yourself. ”Buddy” is a cover of a track from an old Snapper E.P. Filtered through the nervous system of Silverbullit's music machine the song comes across with the frightingly menacing edge of Suicide's ”Frankie Teardrop” or Whitehouse's ”Erector”. This is truly a violation of the musically correct. The escape theme is also the lyrical focus of the Joy Division inspired track ”Blood”, which must be considered one of the greatest moments in Silverbullit's musical history. With ”Once Upon A Time” the group succeeds once again in combining the direct and physical with the vague and abstract in a song that best can be described as psychedelic body music. The drummer Anders Gustafsson is here holding an abrasive, distorted bass syntheziser in check with a hard drill sergeant beat that brings German electronic pioneers D.A.F. to mind. Finishing off ”Arclight” with ”Promise You”, Silverbullit achieves the ultimate death pop trip through a dynamic interplay of the rhythm section, Andreas Nilsson's warped layers of somewhat out-of-tune guitars and Simon's vocals.

Silverbullit was founded 1995 in Gotheburg. Pretty soon they became the favourite band among people with an inclination for nihilistic rock like The Stooges and GG Allin. After releasing their debut album ”Silverbullit” in 1997, Silverbullit made a tour in Sweden that was to become legendary. It culminated when Simon got arrested after a gig in a little sleepy town on the Swedish west coast by the local police on the charge of drug abuse. The truth was, however, that Simon was naturally high from the endorphins that his own music had released in him, which, if nothing else, shows that rock and roll can still be subversive. In 2001 the critically acclaimed ”Citizien Bird” was released, marking a slightly changed musical orientation. The sound was now much more monotonous and ambient, inspiried by German kraut rock, Spacemen 3 and the 60s art cult duo Silver Apples. ”Citizen Bird” caused a buzz in indiependent circles in the U.S. where they toured with Soundtrack Of Our Lives in 2002. With their ”Arclight”, their finest release to date, Silverbullit proves that they are one of the most important, mindblowing and innovative rock bands in the world. Rock and roll doesn't get much better than this.