dress me slowly
Rating: 7/10

Silverchair named themselves after a YOU AM I song.

But this relation may lead onto the wrong track: This ain't music about youth angst, this is music for grown-ups.

If I remember it correctly, the last time the Australians have been on a tour throughout Germany must have been in 1997, when they were supporting Wilco.

I got so blown away by their concert then that I immediately got hold on their record (Hourly, Daily) afterwards.

Four years later, the quartet around singer/guitarist Tim Rogers are releasing their fifth record for a new label, BMG.

Not too much has changed, really: Still solid, proper songwriting with structures well known from down under bands. Straight, without superfluous pathos or fiddling around. YOU AM I take what they want from rock history - and they do it in a good, routined way - you can feel that this band is existing for quite some time (since 1989).

Another good point of this record is that in certain moments the moods Tim Rogers creates with his melancholic way of singing, YOU AM I are reminiscent of the Scottish Group Del Amitri.

Which is no bad comparison at all: This is good ol' rock music with an alternative touch.

I bet that it will not do too much for people under 20, who may find it even boring, maybe - but I don't think that this would be the taget-group YOU AM I are aiming at. All these people have their Silverchair records.

Joerg Staude

Thanks to Frehn for the english translation