The Silencers
So Be It

Jimme O'Neill has composed several songs for other artists, has written practically all the tracks for the Silencers, had another band between the seventies and eighties, releasing three albums... He has a solo work ready and must have done a bunch of other things in music... Unfortunately, though, he has remained almost a prisoner of that musical-space-temporal bubble called "80s Celtic rock." Needless to say, between U2 and Simple Minds, the residual space within that bubble was limited.... And there the Silencers had to "settle" along with quite a few other bands.

O'Neill and Cha Burns have decidedly a more stylish touch than Kerr and company, and a softer but also more sophisticated register than Vox and co.: nonetheless, they did not impose themselves as a valid "alternative" within the same landscape.

A label, that of a Celtic rock band, which in my opinion is too tight for a band like this that has produced so much delicate new wave, but which O'Neill seems to accept without problems, given what can be read from the home page of their website. And so, since we are talking about Celtic rock, it's only right to discuss this "So Be It" from 1995, undoubtedly the Celtic (pop)rock album of the 90s that U2 did not know how to (and most probably did not want to, it must be said) make.

Sweet keyboards aside, just listen to the opening "Something Worth Fighting For" to realize that these are the U2, the U2 that sail and cross the ocean, the U2 of "Desire"... O'Neill and company immediately place a lethal trio, and the opener is followed by "Killing For God," where the drama of their folkwaverock marries arpeggios and sounds dear to Mr. Robert Smith. Following that, is the sunny and captivating "27." If there are things that distinguish the Silencers' music, they are the guitar riffs: pop and rock music standards, they always veer towards the Celtic and have a sound never intent on making you forget the band's origin. Thus, in this "27" and in all their tracks, even with the establishment of a decent wall of sound, you will never hear guitars roar.

Very charming "Number One Friend," rhythm and blues over a dozen French accordions, or even the dirty garage of "Henry's Black Shadow"... Then, when "Flying" kicks in, you find yourself back in the green moors: you're inside U2's "Elvis Presley And America"... If they must be U2, they are certainly not the arena ones of "War" (even though O'Neill does not disdain social and/or political themes at all, tackled even in this album): rather, those of "The Unforgettable Fire."

These pseudo-Celtic rockers still offer the typical "Belfast Child song" "Wild Mountain Thyme"; they propose the R.E.M.-like "Hello Stranger," offer a delicate but standard, for long stretches acoustic, "About The Sea"... All while respecting the label affixed to them as a Celtic band, a bit epic a bit folk, a bit old country, a bit root-rock. However, they add the excellent pop wave guitar-based "Listen" and the concluding "I Believe In You," and if you know Coldplay, even if only for their singles, you cannot fail to recognize that piano: to you every deduction on the subject...

The Silencers are thus not a new wave band (that were the Fingerprintz, O'Neill and Cha Burns' previous band together), but a Celtic rock band. Consequently, years later, they have not been rediscovered by those nostalgic for a certain kind of music, probably because there are very few nostalgic for Celtic rock, at least around here. Who knows, though, in France, a regular stop for O'Neill always, where the Silencers are much more than a "band inside a bubble"... But this is a group I recommend rediscovering, if only for the skill of its deus ex machina, when he engages in pop wave. We can't leave the "onus of rediscovery" to Chris Martin alone!