Sylvie - An Electric Trace

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 22 / 1 / 2006

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Review

Sylvie originate from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Not a huge city, and one that most people from outside of Canada, or even the province, may not have heard of, but it is a city that has produced a number of note worthy musicians and bands, and Sylvie are firmly established under this category. 'An Electric Trace' is Sylvie’s second album. Their first album, 'I Wish I Was Driving' was nominated at the Western Canadian music awards for “Outstanding independent album of the year” and those Western Canadians were surely onto something. Sylvie’s sound has a flavour of the post-punk and post-hardcore music, that most bands with an ounce of talent seem to get lumped in as. This basically means it is independent music, with a punk or hardcore flavour, but which doesn't sound the same as many other bands. They manage to have intense sounding songs, that draw you in without having to scream at you to keep your attention. Yet they do not dither around or play particularly slow. They do this by the layering of sounds. Within the songs the tunes are all intricately woven together. Then there are the vocals of Singer/guitarist Joel Passmore, who has a wonderful voice, which sounds a bit like Ian Mackaye of Fugazi and Minor Threat would if he had had singing lessons. To keep the layering feeling in many of the songs female bassist, Riva Farrell Racette, sings backing vocals, and the two combined together sound beautiful and fit perfectly with the music on such songs as 'Shopping Isles' and 'Anatomy of a Headline'. Other highlights come in the form of slow burner 'Alert' and the more rockier songs like 'Hit and Run' and 'Common Art'. But the main strength of this album is simply that you really want to just listen to it all and not switch off right until the very end. It is not instantly hook laden like some albums, but succeeds by being so carefully crafted that every sound seems to be crucial. This is a great album from a great band, it is an album similar to that of the latest Thrice album or any of the Fugazi albums. The key being the real depth of the music rather than it just being a straight forward listen. This band are definitely worth checking out.

Track Listing:-

1 Hit & Run
2 Common Art
3 What You Find You Leave With
4 Shopping Aisles
5 Syntax
6 An Electric Trace
7 Anatomy of a Headline {media}
8 Rise and Fall
9 Mid Laugh
10 Sequences
11 Alert
12 Small Differences