SILVERLIGHT SHADOWS // Desolation Destroys!

Though Silverlight Shadows’ new single, Black The World, aligns nicely with the recent catastrophes the country has experienced, the stoner-grunge thrashers from Melbourne actually recorded the track in March of 2019. “The timing is, well, yeah …” agrees the band’s singer and guitarist, Nida Silverlight.

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The motivation behind the song is, however, just as foreboding as all these bushfires, droughts and whatnot. “The song is about death, really. Bit of a morbid song” says Nida frankly. “I didn’t have a name for the song; I said to my seven-year-old son, ‘What shall I call this one?’ and he’s like, ‘Black the whole entire world,’ straight away. It fit perfectly with the riff and stuff.”

It’s almost a sad state of affairs when a seven-year-old child is so aware of death and destruction around us that he can say something like that–though Nida isn’t entirely sure his son is aware, at least a good thing to come from such an observation is a cool song name. “He spat it out straight at me without hesitation. I was like, ‘Wow dude, that’s great’.”

Nida agrees the song is dark, but its sound is far from bleak. It’s fast, upbeat, and in keeping with the band’s carefree, hectic blend of thrash, garage-rock, and more. “It’s the sound we create,” says Nida. “It’s pretty high-octane rock what we do.”

Coal pollution, deforestation, and plastic pollution–the three big problems …
[ Nida Silverlight ]

Almost a year since Black The World’s inception, Nida agrees it’s weird time for it to come out and is open to the track being affiliated and interpreted to sit alongside current events. “It’s not meant to be, put it that way, but it’s strange all this stuff’s going on and the song’s come out.

“Who knows. It’s weird how the universe works.”

At Silverlight Shadows recent launch show for the new single, Nida says it’s hard to say whether the audience were getting into the meaning and message of Black The World as much as they were the music. “I can’t tell what people feel, but people were definitely singing along, lots of fist pumping going on. People were enjoying it.

“I can’t really speak for whether they got into the meaning of it–really there is no meaning because a seven-year-old kid came up with it.

“In the chorus it goes deep down inside your mind/where there’s nowhere to hide/black the whole entire world. Once he said that to me, I came up with that little bit.”

A collaboration across generations, it seems. “I’ve actually printed him on the song as a song writer,” Nida says with pride. “It’s pretty cute,” he continues of his son. “He plays piano and stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became a musician as well.”

The single’s accompanying video, filmed in December, sees action shots of Silverlight Shadows intertwined with footage of just about every environmental disaster you can think of– deforestation, landfill, you name it, it’s in there–the topic of death is portrayed in this music video to the extreme in the hopes that people can take something away from it. “That’s the idea of it, anyway,” agrees Nida. “Coal pollution, deforestation, and plastic pollution–the three big problems,” says Nida “We just wanted to make a point of putting that in the video, and stuff.”

It’s still early in the year, but this latest single does indeed set Silverlight Shadows up, and their listeners, for more material to come later on. “We’ve got a lot of new material pretty much written, so we’ll be working on them,” says Nida. “I’m actually gonna jump on the bass for a couple of them, and our bass player Dan, he’ll be singing and playing guitar on a couple of them.

“Still heavy rock but a bit different to what we’ve done. We’ve got a lot of songs, we’re not sure whether we’ll do an album, an EP, but we’re looking forward to getting back to recording as soon as we can.”

A shake-up in Silverlight Shadows’ positions has been prompted, Silverlight says, purely for execution’s sake. “Dan’s written a couple [of] really good songs,” he says. “He wanted to and we’re happy for him to do that, so. It’s only for a few songs. It’ll be fun to jump on bass for a couple of songs during the set, I’m looking forward to that.

“I just went and bought a Fender Jazz Bass, a black one, so it’s been cool trying to play that.”

Gotta love a new toy.