Stephen Brower & the Silent Majority create sometimes experimental, sometimes straight-laced folk rock filtered through a bombastic and decadent yet resolutely DIY aesthetic. American primitve by way of the shoegazers and desert rockers.

11 MP3 Songs in this album (36:44) !
Related styles: FOLK: Acid Folk, ROCK: Cowpunk

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Details:
Folk-rock experimentalists Stephen Brower & the Silent Majority return with a second LP, Neon & Dirty, on March 31st. The album is the follow up to 2007âs Sad Songs & Others, a rough hewn Americana gem hailed by Flavorpill for its âmelancholy nods to middle America.â

The new album, crafted once again by Brower alone in his Santa Monica studio, shows a tremendous maturation both of songcraft and sonic experimentation. Neon & Dirty ranges aesthetically from the freewheeling americana of the opening âFuneral Pyreâ to brooding, cinematic bombast on the album closer âI Canât Recall,â with myriad stylistic variations coming in the intervening 9 tracks. To execute this stylistic arc, Brower performed, recorded, and mixed all of the albums tracks himself, contributing all vocals, acoustic, electric, and resophonic guitars, mandolin, organ, and drum programming.

Brower also wrote all but two of the songs on Neon & Dirty, mining the plaintive outsider themes central also to Sad Songs & Others. A solemn cover of Waylon Jenningsâ âSo Good Womanâ and âLast Chance,â a boozy country shuffle from writer Tracey McCrary, round out the tunestack. Other tracks such as âHemlock,â the contemporary murder ballad âChevoit Hills,â and L.A. dirge âNew Seoul Motel,â from which the album takes its name, have long been in the bandâs live repertoire, with the arrangements contained on the record thoroughly sussed out in performance with bandmates Tarik Soliman, Ryan Chaffee, and Guillem Lomas.