Someone To Keep Us All Warm: The Silent Years

Something made me want to hate this band before I'd heard a single song--maybe it's the name, or the seriously over-produced website I found when I googled them--but the music these guys make just won't let that happen. The Silent Years is a 6 piece band from Detroit with a freaking kazoo, a chihuahua, and a couple songs about being naked and dead. How fucked up is that? Singer Josh Epstein has this voice that I swear I've heard from 20 other bands, but I can't figure out which ones, so for some reason, he ends up sounding pretty unique. I'll be honest--the songs are not particularly outstanding, the lyrics are a little hokey (hokey enough to make me say 'hokey'), and I still don't get the little cartoon animals they put all over everything--but for some reason I feel strangely compelled to listen to this song over and over and over again until it blends into every other sound and becomes indistinguishable on its own. Which I feel is a good thing. Is that weird?

Download the full s/t EP here.



read more:
Daytrotter Session
The Silent Years at No Alternative Records
Pitchfork Article