Band of the Week: The Silent Years

Hometown: Detroit, Mich.
Band Members: Josh Epstein (vocals, guitar), Mike Majewski (bass), Cassandra Verras (piano, strings), Ryan Clancy (drums), Fabian Halabou (guitar)
Album: The Globe (out now), Let Go EP (coming July 2009)
For Fans Of: Arcade Fire, Cloud Cult, Anathallo

The Silent Years' frontman Josh Epstein tends to speak in metaphor, especially when describing his band's decision to limit the amount of local shows performed in its hometown of Detroit. “When you see your girlfriend every day, it’s less special than when you were first dating and saw her once a week,” he says. “Every time you go to see a band play, it should be special. It’s about giving people an experience.” When The Silent Years do play live, it's often a theatrical affair, enlisting cheap party favors and a 17-person chorus decked out in Snuggies. “They may be perceived as gimmicks,” continues Epstein, “but [our live performances] come from a much more genuine place.”

Despite the onstage frivolities, the band takes music-making quite seriously. After recording the material for their first full-length album themselves, upon playback the quintet realized an experienced engineer and mixer would benefit their sound, so they enlisted producer Chris Coady, whose previous work includes TV On The Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. To cut down on costs, Epstein personally drove from Detroit to New York City to bring Coady back to the studio. “We would enter the studio around rush hour,” Epstein recalls, “and record till the sun came up… sleep, eat, repeat.”

The schedule was grueling, but it paid off: The resulting album, The Globe, released in fall 2008, practiced a lawful cohesiveness, a dozen tracks of smooth, friction-free puzzle pieces sliding together in sonic uniformity, gently corroding away at deeply orchestrated rhythms eventually colliding with Epstein’s soaring, end-of-song vocal heroics. But before The Globe's official drop, The Silent Years headed back into the studio to record what would ultimately become the Let Go EP, the band's first release for Sidecho Records, coming July 17.

“We were all in a really good mood,” Epstein says of the Let Go sessions (though he wrestles with comparing the process to to “that scene from Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze and the bad guys.”) “We wanted to create a summer pop record—more upbeat, more smiles, more crunch.” On the EP, The Silent Years trade in The Globe's pristine production for an exploration through static and friction—elements that battle throughout the EP, but break like clouds for Epstein’s handy hooks, melodic spirals, charmingly desperate vocals and Ryan Clancy’s rapid-fire drumming.  

Two months before the EP's official release, though, The Silent Years have moved into yet another “new chapter.” Forty-something songs are scattered around Epstein's house, trapped on cassette tapes until the band records its full-length Sidecho debut, due this fall. Epstein writes prolifically, but with a catch. “I’m not Ryan Adams—I can’t sit down and make myself write,” he says. “It’s after I’ve given up and I’m taking the dog for a walk that the waves of inspiration arrive.”

Listen to The Silent Years' "On Our Way Home" from The Globe: