Hearing SilverGlam’s debut album is like being pushed into a time machine and whirled back to the carefree 1970s. “The Glamrock Sessions Vol. 1” (RockVilla) is the name of the album, and it sounds like an echo of the soundtrack to my confirmation age. Platform boots, pants with a sweeping sway and hair that was blow-dried and curled. That was the fashion of my generation there in 1974. And SilverGlam then also opens the album with a number called “74” in short. Its nostalgia served on a silver platter and ready to be washed down with a Jolly Cola (plus a dash of smuggled Bacardi).
But as the pickup screws into “The Glamrock Sessions Vol. 1”, the music becomes freer. Yes, there are recognizable song templates from the festive years before the oil crisis and the depression that pushed glam rock into punk and new wave. “Sweet Genny Genny” is a younger cousin to David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie”, and there is a Marc Bolan-esque step kick in the main riff of “Lady Strange”, while the drum intro to “Rebel Glam” probably wouldn’t have sounded quite like that without a friendly tip from Suzi Quatro’s “Daytona Demon”. SilverGlam seems to think that the highlight of “The Glamrock Sessions Vol. 1” is “Moonlight In Baskerville” – a cover version of a Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman number that Sweet turned down in 1973. I understand Sweet. Some Baskerville bite is missing in the song, which today seems like a draft of “Teenage Rampage”.
What I’m trying to say is: SilverGlam’s own tracks are better. “Low Rider” is MUCH better than the Chinn & Chapman track. Flabby and blistering electric guitar riffs are generally plentiful on “The Glamrock Sessions Vol. 1”. “The Spot” is just one example. SilverGlam is the sound of aging musicians who dream back to their prime years. It could have been embarrassing if SilverGlam didn’t play and sing so star-sparklingly well.
The group is also led by drummer Gert Oestrich, who has a past in the Danish punk luminaries City-X, although I know him better from the hard rock groups Stalin Staccato and Free Cloud Nine. With him, Oestrich has the singers Elsebeth G. Jensen and Thomas Carstensen, who hit the cuddly glitter style quite precisely – and youthfully! The crew is completed by bassist Henrik Christiansen and guitarist Henrik Botoft. The last rock’n’roll boost gets “The Glamrock Sessions Vol. 1” by guitarist Peter Peter (Sods, Sort Sol, Bleeder). On top of that, Gert Oestrich has succeeded in giving SilverGlam an authentic glam sound, terrifically freed from digitalitis and hypercompression and other 21st century rock killer habits. Well, I have to run. I’m going up to the attic to see if the high-heeled boots Still fit…
Peter Béliath