Come on Like the Fast Lane

Buzzes with rock energy reminiscent of the proto-punk lower East Side legends like The Velvet Underground and Television, punched up with pop melodies that resuscitates a sound that never went out of style.

Full Description

After 20 years as the leader of The Silos, it would be easy for Walter Salas-Humara to sink into a creative comfort-zone, turning out likable, catchy tunes with zero edge. Not so. Come On Like The Fast Lane buzzes with rock energy reminiscent of the proto-punk lower East Side legends like The Velvet Underground and Television, punched up with pop melodies that resuscitates a sound that never went out of style. The songs play out like minimalist short stories framed by the spacious, guitar-heavy arrangements the band is known for.

On Come On Like The Fast Lane, recorded in Phillip Glass’s Looking Glass Studios, The Silos put their power-trio to the test. The band employs layered guitars to add depth and transcendence to the album’s introspective tracks, switching to ferocious, hook-laden rock to part the clouds and land back on terra firma. It’s this ability to draw on an inexhaustible well of emotions with turn-on-a-dime transitions that sets The Silos apart; naked honesty and joyous melodies never sounded so good together.

Come On Like The Fast Lane opens with the Salas-Humara/Steve Wynn co-penned “Behind Me Now”, showcasing guileless pop guitar breaks while questioning hidden meanings with equal application in the personal and political. A bleaker view presents itself in “People Are Right” as Salas-Humara describes the condition of a “… heart that is adrift between the shores and heaven and hell”. “Keeping Score” takes the high lonesome sound associated with soundtrack genius Ennio Morricone and infuses it with distinctively American noir elements.

CHOICE CUTS:
Behind Me Now
Tell Me You Love Me
People Are Right
Top of the World

Short Description

A ragged scorcher of an attack that combines the mercurial feel of the Velvet Underground with the assertive middle-finger of Exile-era Stones.

— Amplifier
With equal parts twang and rock, and enough ferocious guitar feedback to make Crazy Horse grin, the Silos sizzle with tightly packaged songs bristling with unbridled energy.

— Exclaim
In less skilled hands, this kind of genre-jumping would indicate a band that can't commit to a sound, but The Silos are much too gifted to suffer from anything as pedestrian as indecision. Salas-Humara has always reveled in his creative schizophrenia and Come On Like the Fast Lane is further proof of his extraordinary ability to incorporate his myriad influences into a singular sonic coat of many colors.

— City Beat
The band's austere style inflects the astringent twang of The Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons

— New York Times