CHILLS - Silver Bullets

"Silver Bullets" arrives after almost twenty years of recording silence from Martin Phillipps' band, a dark and troubled period during which the New Zealand musician was overwhelmed by drugs and depression.

The Chills name brings back fond memories, tied to a golden age for rock music, when even minor, commercially less fortunate bands could count on a considerable following - the same following that has remained anxiously waiting for a follow-up to the band's last chapter, 1996's "Sunburnt".

The twelve tracks of the Chills' fifth album betray none of those premises: that naive innocence which made the band's otherwise intricate sonic textures shine so brightly is still vividly alive, in their fascinating hybrid of Buzzcocks and Rem filtered through a Big Star sensibility.

Martin Phillipps has recovered not only the sonic aesthetic of his creations, but also the melancholic, incisive grace of his songwriting, gifting us at least a trio of new classics to add to his brief but refined songbook.

The title track immediately makes clear the state of health of the Chills: a sequence of infectious, driving jangle-pop chords, a jolt of energy that steers clear of the mellow tones of nostalgia and vintage-retro revivalism.

It's in this desire to get back in the game regardless that the appeal of "Silver Bullets" lies: tracks like "Warm Waveform" and "Underwater Wasteland" are no pale copies of a glorious past; even the lyrics dust off the same poetic and philosophical intensity, and there's no shortage of lucid, more political analysis in the anguished yet still dazzling "America Say Hello".

Phillips also rediscovers his mastery as a sonic craftsman working in batik style, layering sounds and harmonic inventions to create one of the album's most ambitious and precious songs, namely "Pyramid/When The Poor Can Reach Moon": an apocalyptic mini-suite packed with enough lyrical ideas to make the fortune of any indie band on its own, a masterpiece of creativity and communicative power (the central riff is pure ecstasy) with all the stature of an instant classic.

There's still room for an effervescent slice of pop-rock ("Aurora Corona") that serves as a delightful counterpoint to the predictability of tracks like "Tomboy" and "I Can't Help You", while the reworking of "Molten Gold" (a single released two years ago) closes one of the best comeback albums ever with infectious enthusiasm. Welcome back, Martin.

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29/11/2015