Show Me How You Do That Trick

The Silence Kit's new album is their most cohesive statement so far.

by Patrick Rapa

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Published: Feb 24, 2010

GET LOUDER: (L-R) Patrick McCay, TJ Wark, Jay Dyer and Don Ocava of The Silence Kit.

[ local/rock/pop ]

The Silence Kit doesn't sound like much else in Philadelphia. Frontman Patrick McCay makes no bones about his love for post-punk Britishisms; the artful arrangements, stark guitars and charismatic vocals recall Joy Division or The Cure. The Silence Kit's new one, Dislocations — recorded in McCay's home studio/practice space in South Jersey — is the band's boldest, most cohesive statement so far.

City Paper: Dislocations seems to rock harder than previous TSK stuff.

Patrick McCay: You're right, the new album does probably rock a bit more. The bands we listen to and are influenced by are really quite varied. I think we're finding new ways to turn those disparate elements into new sounds, and that's of course what it's all about. Lately, things have definitely been coming out a little more edgy overall, which I think is a good thing.

CP: To my ears, it's a little less Cure and a touch more Nick Cave.

PM: A couple of songs on the album I've had for years but as soon as I brought them to this lineup the songs really took on a new life and started to rock a bit more while still retaining the textured aspects of our sound, which I think is important. But yeah, this album came out a little heavier on the Nick Cave and The Pixies side of things.

CP: Your voice sounds really strong on this one.

PM: I think I'm getting a little better at being my own critic, as well as my own engineer. Knowing whether something has to be sung again, or if it has the right feel and shouldn't be, is always the toughest part. So, I'm happy to hear you say that.

CP: "Bad Months" strikes me as the perfect Silence Kit recipe — you got the moody start leading into some loud, jangly rock, the soaring effects, the catchy chorus.

PM: Thanks a lot. It's interesting because this is one that almost didn't make the album. It's an older song I'd written years ago, and an earlier lineup of The Silence Kit played it for a while. It was a much gentler arrangement back then, and we stopped playing it in 2005 or so. . . . When the time came to record it [for Dislocations], we stumbled a bit at first since we hadn't played it in quite a while and we wondered if we should keep going with it. We decided to record some other songs and just come back to it later. Once we did that . . . we got it down really quickly and were pretty surprised by how well it turned out. We all realized that we'd kind of forgotten how much we liked the song.

(pat@citypaper.net)

Sat., Feb. 27, 9 p.m., $8, with Party Photographers, The Standard Model and Tina Kaffeyah, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, thekhyber.com.

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