The Silent Music Club is an interesting blend of New Wave and pseudo-industrial pop music.  Interestingly, the album boasts a mid 80's, Pet Shop Boys versus Depeche Mode sound mixed with a more contemporary industrial edge somewhat like early Dietiphobia.

The album concept is the thought provoking novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  The tale is of a man named Montag, who leaves off his futuristic job as a "fireman" who burns books, to study them and question the intelligence of his wife, Mildred, and the masses to which he once aspired.  Bradbury's story is perhaps one of the best classic sci-fi novels written, and for that the album is all the better.  The lyrics and vocals seem to support the transformation of Montag and do the novel justice.  But musically the EP is perhaps a good start at best.  It doesn't reach the level of professionalism that this genre boasts.  Perhaps in future recordings the mix can be compiled with more change ups, stronger key boards, tighter drums, and a lot more raw energy.  The screaming vocals hardly match what is going on in the instrumentation.  Perhaps the screaming could go altogether, and those soft "Personal Jesus" vocals could prevail and push The Silent Music Club into a position where they won't remain so silent.

Todd Ballard 2/11/2000

This maxi-EP from the mysterious Silent Music Club is inspired by Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 novel-- a future vision of a society where books are forbidden by a totalitarian regime. The Sirens of Silence captures much of the dense, nightmarish quality of the story through dark, relentless, sequenced music, topped with distorted shouted words. The lyrics are twisted, mostly negative, and strung together on the lyric sheet withoutspacespunctuationorcapitalisation, which makes them difficult to read--but that was probably the intent. The EP makes for challenging listening, unless you're a NIN or Sheep on Drugs fan, and is probably best appreciated once you've read the book.

Daren Allder, 17th March 2000