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Personnel: Jason Falkner (vocals, guitar, steel guitar, Wurlitzer organ, Mellotron, Oberheim synthesizer, drum set, percussion, background vocals); Thomas Walsh (vocals, electric guitar, Mellotron, percussion, background vocals). Audio Mixer: Jason Falkner. Recording information: Rhetoric Studios, Los Angeles, California. Photographer: Julia Ewan. If a man is judged by the company he keeps, then Thomas Walsh is even more brilliant than his fine records would suggest. Walsh is the singer, songwriter, guitarist, and sole constant member of the Irish pop group Pugwash, and though he hasn't sold a lot of records, he's worked alongside the likes of Ray Davies of the Kinks, Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory of XTC, Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy, Jeff Lynne of ELO, and Ben Folds of Ben Folds. While the line-up of Pugwash that recorded 2015's Play This Intimately (As If Among Friends) had broken up, that didn't stop Walsh in his mission to make more great pop music. For 2017's Silverlake, he teamed up with Jason Falkner, another underrated pop genius and a member of Jellyfish and done studio work with everyone from Glen Campbell to Paul McCartney. Silverlake is a two-man project, with Walsh writing the songs, singing lead, playing acoustic guitar, and sketching out the arrangements, while Falkner produced and engineered the sessions, sang backup, and played the rest of the instruments. With Falkner on board, it's not much of a surprise that Silverlake slightly favors early-'70s pop over the '60s sounds that are usually Walsh's bread and butter, but there's still an audible undertow of British Invasion melodicism in these tunes, and as always, Walsh proves he's an ace tunesmith on these 11 tracks. From the busted romanticism of "What Are You Like," the subtle psychedelia of "Autarch," and the acoustic drift of "Sunshine True," to the sinewy attack of "Why Do I" and the uptempo jangle of "Easier Done Than Said," Walsh is one of the most consistently satisfying songwriters in the contemporary smart pop universe, and his voice suits this material perfectly. In Falkner, Walsh has found a sympathetic collaborator who artfully assists in fleshing out this material, and the result is another album that proves talented folks don't just pop up on Pugwash albums because Walsh is a nice guy -- he's also got the goods, and Silverlake leaves no doubt of it. ~ Mark Deming
