Nia Archives
Silence Is Loud
ISLAND
Everything is cyclical, so everything comes back into style again, but it was still surprising when artists who would eventually become pop stars like PinkPantheress began not only dabbling in but completely owning the sounds of London’s past—of going to a rave, dancing, and definitely not doing drugs—as the city’s jungle and drum and bass renaissance was unfolding. It isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, and in its second era, it’s even more expansive and experimental.
This is what makes Nia Archives’ debut album Silence Is Loud so thrilling. The Amen break and sped up footwork grooves aren’t here to be gawked at but to be reinterpreted and shared as a new vocabulary among a new generation of music makers and listeners. Ostensibly these are pop songs, but Archives twists them in her own thrilling ways, commenting on the history of a multitude of subgenres in a way that’s never navel-gazey and always assured. Take the album’s second track, “Cards on the Table.” The drums are so fast they almost feel like some remixed play on chiptune. Twinkling synths and fireside guitar give the song a cheeky twist, and while all the ideas spelled out make it seem like some sort of mashup gimmick, it works phenomenally well.
While the album remains comfortable in the territory Archives has spent her brief, skyrocketing career cultivating, she does shift styles enough to give the album some spice—the chief complaint here being that she doesn’t do this enough. Pre-album single “Forbidden Feelingz” takes its time getting to its thesis before revealing an ice-cold dance groove that sounds a little like Burial on Disclosure amounts of ecstasy. Its follow-up, a tidy little tune called “Blind Devotion,” plays with R&B vocals and spine-tingling guitar melodies that recall Radiohead. This is what Silence Is Loud does at its best: It creates a world that sounds like a million little things, but ultimately shines because of Nia Archives’ powerful voice and stunning vision.
