Product Description

Second full length studio album from Dallas-born trio Secret Machines. This is the follow-up to 2004's 'Now Here Is Nowhere'. Produced by the band, the album was recorded at the Allaire Studios in New York. The singles 'Lightning Blue Eyes' and 'Faded Lines' are included.

Track Listing

1. Alone Jealous And Stoned
2. All At Once (It's Not Important)
3. Lightning Blue Eyes
4. Daddy's In The Doldrums
5. I Hate Pretending
6. Faded Lines
7. I Want To Know If It's Still Possible
8. 1000 Seconds

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15997 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-03
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The rise of Texan troubadours Secret Machines has been impressive. They initially appeared with the fantastic debut album September 000; bettered it with Now Here Is Nowhere; and now they’ve gone one better with Ten Silver Drops--not only a more personal record, but also more musically ambitious and more conceptually sustained. Recorded in the Catskills mountains in New York state, the band’s third project leads with the whirling, yearning, mildly epic single "Alone, Jealous and Stoned" before unfurling in typically "space-rock" (their description) fashion, all prog-rock psychedelia, hypnotic krautrock grooves and a decent split of cosmic instrumentals and catchy Flaming Lips-style choruses. The loping, slow-burning strangeness of "Daddy’s In The Doldrums" and the easy-going "I Want To Know (if it’s still possible" (featuring Garth Hudson from The Band on accordion) all bring forth the band’s penetrative grooves and psych-rock keyboard scribbles, offering a sound that’s impressively muscular and surprisingly melodic. It’s very rare that a band these days gets better and better with each successive album, but Secret Machines are fast becoming old masters at upsetting such conventions.--Paul Sullivan

Customer Reviews

THE MACHINES ARE SECRET, THE INFLUENCES ANYTHING BUT
I read some of the reviews and figured Secret Machines were my kind of band. Thankfully I picked up this album cheap a year or so after it had been released, or I'd have felt ripped off. A touch of Bowie, a smidgen of krautrock, a patina of prog, all bolted onto what is in effect an uninteresting garage band.

One review I came across compared Secret Machines to Arcade Fire, which sparked my interest. But there's none of the latter's mercurial shifts and command of dynamics here, just a chug-chug-chugging rock churn put together by a band who've learned a few tricks from playing live, but won't -- I suspect -- transcend their obvious influences. Believe me, I'm not in the habit of making negative reviews, but in this case I wanted to counter the overwhelming positivity that this band seem to be greeted with and put forward another take.

Songs of Experience
They just keep getting better and better, these boys! As an ardent fan of the power and scale of Now Here Is Nowhere, I was slightly taken aback by the style of this album, but it's just kept growing on me over the last six months.

10 Silver Drops is a songs album, with mostly darker and grittier subject matter than ...Nowhere, but is by no means a downer, and shows the guys growing up personally as much as musically. Relationships now provide the album's central motif, providing a different psychic landscape which only adds to the strength of the material and the power of the performances.

The motorik 'space rock' grooves remain the foundation of the band's sound, with the Curtis brothers adding layers of bass, guitars, pianos and various electronic effects and treatments over Josh Garza's pounding drums, as he channels the likes of Bonham and Moon and pummels the hell out of his drumkit with a joyously controlled abandon (check out I Hate Pretending). As the good Dr Sillars has suggested, the most apparent musical influences are more European than American; the guitar riffs are firmly rooted in Who/Zep heavy rock territory and the melodic inspiration nods towards the great prog outfits and the 70s German school, with shades of Eno, the Velvets, and even a hint of early Bowie (especially the last 2 tracks).

An overall absence of solo and instrumental bombast in favour of tight arrangements and focussed performances belies the traditional 'prog' tag however, and the resulting wave of sound has a strongly engaging effect that draws the listener in rather than overwhelm them. The tracks mostly clock in around 5 minutes, and vary in mood and passion from the gentler, more reflective I Want To Know If It's Still Possible and 1000 Seconds, through the cheerful offhand bite of All At Once.. and Faded Lines, to paranoia and regret on Alone, Jealous and Stoned, and the sheer rapture of Lightning Blue Eyes.

The epic scale remains in all the songs, especially the bleak, smouldering 9 minutes of Daddy's In The Doldrums, and the chaps really know how to build a track to its natural massive conclusion. Although there isn't a naff track in sight, the best examples for me are the slow burning opener Alone Jealous and Stoned, the cheerful rattling shuffle of I Hate Pretending, and the stunning Lightning Blue Eyes which starts out as a classic power trio work out and just gets bigger and better (and now occupies a place in my all time top 20 fave tracks!),. Play it loud!

Best Served Alone
Take a healthy amount of prog rock, blend in a liberal amount of krautrock, and top it off with some shoegazing music and you have Secret Machines' sophomore album Ten Silver Drops. Firstly, its a "well done" to the band for successfully producing a record that builds on the first, by showing an increasing maturity and sense of journey to their music. With its meandering prog rock influences, Here is Nowhere would not have been to everyone's liking, but this album does not betray its predecessor in opening the band up to a wider audience with quieter, darker, more tightly structured compositions, with Garza being let loose more on the drums.

Thematically, the album can be mostly summed up by the name of the opening track and first single off the album -"Alone, Jealous, and Stoned", i.e. dealing with the aftermath of a relationship that has ended. Indeed, I like the "fading-in and -out of consciousness" rationalisations potrayed in the following lyrics:

Sitting at home, what am I doing?
Boy waitng by the phone
Alone, jealous and stoned

I waited for you
I always waited for you

Can't have been too late
As I was still warm
Fighting off heavy eyes
Still thinking you would call

This song also sets out the soundscape for the album with its hushed, downbeat, and melancholic tones.

"All at Once (Its not Important)" has an "Arcade Fire" feel to it, with its mild, sad vocals over a soft but undulating rock beat. The song itself deals with that sudden and horrible realisation that what can be taken for love can be so quickly swept away when a relationship is over ("And all at once it's not important / What fell in place just falls apart").

Secret Machines' prog rock influences are greatest on the 8.5 minute-long "Daddy's in the Doldrums", a composition that manages the unique feat of repeating the same bass rhthym over and over again, yet leaving you quite contented if the song was to never end. It is a grim, brooding piece about a wife leaving her husband, with a baby girl in tow:

His eyes stood frozen, dark
A breath of overcasting black
I watched her walk away
I know she ain't coming back

"I Hate Pretending" is something of a sore thumb on Ten Silver Drops. Its an urban tale of a drugs, paranoia, and undercover cops that benefts for the first few listens by being something of a detour. Ultimately, though, the modest lyrics make it the weakest song on the album. However, it does pose the intriguing question - do you believe in love or in the art of persuasion? No, I haven't got a clue either.

The album's best track for me though is "Faded Lines". The song again relies on looping rhythms, but the more up-tempo beat overlayed by vocal uh-huhs makes this a great tune. Listen out for this bitter observation in the chorus:

Make up your mind
Cause its only love
That's all
Just faded lines

The last track on the album is the melodic "1,000 seconds" and strikes a small but defiant note of optimism after the gloom of much that preceded it ("I need love, that don't mean I need you").

Perhaps think of Secret Machines as a grown-up Flaming Lips - spacey music without the spacey baggage. This album is at its most effective when you are feeling down and drunk. Its powerful enough to move you, without the need to involve a window ledge!