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As a native of Columbia, South Carolina, I'm proud to call Silers Bald home-town boys, since I watched this band evolve and mature. Built from an original lineup of five guys and two girls and heavily influenced by Rich Mullins, Caedmon's Call and Jars of Clay, we can scratch the background and move forward. Silers Bald -- named after the ridge on the Appalachian Trail in Tennessee -- has fully come into its own. Backtracking to its first recordings to Nothing Else Beside (1998) and its self-titled first national release (2000), there were always some rough places. They're made smooth, but definitely not slick.

Whether you're either brand new to Silers Bald or know the band's music well, pop Real Life into your CD player and give a very close listen to the lead track, "Got Me Smiling." There's a sweet pop representative track exemplifying Real Life, a remake of their trademark song going back to Nothing Else Beside, the first single and perfect lead-in to Real Life.

What works incredibly well with this project is that nothing here is slick or over-produced; kudos to Joshua Moore for adding some spit-polish just where it needs to be done to keep Silers Bald in its own element and not outside that element. Those rough places made smooth? The rockers from this project have the potential to be disjointed or too hard-edged. Not this time around. "Feel" and Tom Conlon's "Emmanuel" are out-and-out rockers that remind me slightly of a twenty first century Buddy Holly (example of a good ear from producer Moore: "na-na-na" background vocals in "Emmanuel" are complimentary to the song's arrangement and not overdone). Okay, no more comparisons! Let's start again!

Silers Bald has always been a folk-rock praise band, and that defining point is certainly the gist of Real Life. Simply read the lyrics to "Room Song," "My Heart Will Sing," as well as all the aforementioned songs. Neatly sums it up? Almost done!

This recording is near-perfect, and the only fine-tuning Silers Bald could do with future projects is to interject a tad more of the fun side into studio recordings, and they're on their way to another mountain-top experience. Longtime Silers fans remember "Playin' in the Creek," and short-term fans have know their cover version of U2's "When Love Comes to Town." Just some food for thought.

While Silers Bald now resides in Nashville, the band has not lost its flair for its South Carolina heritage (listen to "Carolina Line") or influences of Mullins (there's still plenty of hammered dulcimer from Marcus Myers), Caedmon's or Jars. They're simply merging all this stuff into a neater, tighter package. I heartily recommend Real Life, an incredibly fulfilling recording from a band with an incredibly big future ahead of them.

Olin Jenkins  Sunday, February 29, 2004