Silvery: Christmas ’74

Silvery love xmas, or maybe just the ghost of xmas music past – the stuff you can still listen to, just, after decades of heavy seasonal rotation… 70s glam stomps in particular. Silvery have done this festive pop thing before, having released a few xmas EPs over the years. Even their rip-roaring cover of ‘You Give A Little Love’ is sort of xmassy, given that Bugsy Malone was a seasonal fixture on kids’ TV in the UK for what seemed like years.

Both Bars On have a tradition of xmas posts, too, though this year we’ve been a bit slow off the mark. There’s a bloggers’ theory that the sort of bands we like are more likely to put out xmas songs because – let’s face it – they’re not worried about fighting off TV show winners on Top of the Pops. So we’ve often had seasonal songs in before. Not sure what’s happened this year – do we know it’s xmas, or what?

Anyhow, Silvery present a couple of clever pop songs with their usual set of references – Victoriana, a glam/punk knees-up, daftness. Great fun. But my favourite, I think, is their latest contribution to the shaggy dog (cat?) stories they began with ‘Animals Are Vanishing (Or, Martian Invasion 1853)’ from Thunderer and Excelsior. This one is an updating of A Christmas Carol and I INSIST you listen to it, and listen to the end. You’ll thank me.

And here is ‘Animals…’ which, again, should be heard through RIGHT TO THE END.

So buy the latest EP here.

THE END.

jkneale