Green Light Silhouette is a group with influences ranging from Alt/Rock to Folk, Hardcore/Punk and everything in between. Loaded with members coming from other bands they put this project together because they all have the same passion for creating music. Green Light Silhouette currently is Neal Mckenzie (Vocals, Guitar), Nick Yanez (Lead Guitar), Ryan Macauley (Bass, Vocals, Synth) and Joel Heun (Drums). Rock music is the art of feeling weightless. It’s about shaking yourself free of the burden, the obligation, the ball-and-chain boredom of modern life. About how three-chords and a melody can make the bad stuff seem less bad. Less powerful. Less likely to swallow you up. It’s made for drunken dancing, slurred singing, being with your friends and enjoying life despite what it does to you. And Green Light Silhouette easily fills part of that soundtrack with their album “The Mind Suggests Less Knowing”.
These days, it’s commonplace for young bands to not fully live up to their potential, as they aim too high, trying way too hard to impress, but anyone who dismisses Green Light Silhouette’s new album after just one listen is seriously mistaken. On the new full-length album consisting of 10 tracks, the band sounds like one with plenty of touring experience, with lots of musical ideas, and maturity.
All their most defining characteristics are brought to the fore – the highly melodic vocals, the creative drumming, the understated, yet highly effective basslines, and the guitars that share impeccable, licks and riffs. It’s what the band does with those ingredients that makes this album a superior one.
“The Mind Suggests Less Knowing” is loaded with nifty little touches, accents that give it more color. There’s the slinky, chiming guitar-infused opening in “Drifting”, the juxtaposition of the vocal harmonies and crunchy overdriven guitars on “Walk Away”.
There’s the off-kilter bass in the epic sounding “Let Them Starve”, or the wall of guitars and forceful drumming on “You”. The deliciously catchy angular guitars that gets in your head and won’t ever leave in the title track “The Mind Suggests Less Knowing”. The high speed punk of “Alderaan”.
You can hear the hint of Latin rhythm in “Charmed Life”, which also boasts a terrific guitar line and a shuffling chorus. “Particle Fog” is pure, buoyant energy which is driven by the drums and guitar work, while “Hammer Away” divides it’s time between both acoustic and electric guitar dominated passages and tons of vocal harmony.
There’s so much musical depth in this album that it makes many of the bands contemporary’s sound stale in comparison. Which is weird considering that Green Light Silhouette sometimes lean on retro influences (knowingly or not).
Many of the songs often reiterate how good these guys are at composing uncomplicated, contagious pop hooks time and again, right inside their alternative rock arrangements. The melodic vocals and lush harmonies are obviously a focal point of the band’s sound, and on this album, prove their worth.
You can also hear a sense of world-weariness in their songs. “The Mind Suggests Less Knowing” doesn’t bowl you over, as much as it sneaks up on you. It’s a sly piece of work, an album that niggles its way into your brain with each repeated listen. This album is remarkably controlled, focused, and devilishly smart. And it sure as hell delivers some thrills along the way.
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