Reviews

From www.triphop.hu:
There is more and more triphop-like music coming from the USA these days, mainly influenced by big names like Massive Attack and Portishead. Silver Atlas, formed by Alan Ruffin and Jason Lichon in Chicago steps in the line with their excellent recordings and brilliant (and sometimes too complicated) musical ideas. Although it's not exactly triphop, you should give a spin to their new album 'Layover', with very moody tracks tracks like 'Apart' and 'Joy/Blue'. You could find the sounds too harsh for chilling, but the excellent musical skills, especially the magnificent vocal performance will sooner or later create a unique and world-class recording.

From Faces for Radio:
From the offset, 'Layover' is set within a realm of uncanniness, at once on comforting and homely ground yet making all seem unfamiliar. There's blood on the tracks; a hungry beast is on the prowl, but comfort might be found in the shadows. Each song is imbued with a sense of an urgency.

"There's no use in turning away," The Silver Atlas says, "I've got you and I'm not letting you go."

And you don't want them to, compelled to follow and to hold onto the familiarity of human voices, lest be lost along the uncertain path that wends through miasmic synthesised vistas of sound, pocketed and distorted in turn by the impact of the beat and the jagged and twisted protrusions of electronic noise, tracing a journey through these uncertain landscapes to a destination that remains, even upon the feeling of arrival, unknown.

It is from 'Never Said' through 'Believe' that the listener feels as though a safehaven of sorts has been reached. The precedent darkness lingers like a phantasmagorical memory, but a feeling of ease is presented. However, the abruptness of the finale draws the conclusion that all is not as well as you'd like to have believed it to be.

With one last cold stabbing cut and a muted deathcry at its conclusion, 'Ghost in the House' leaves the listener suddenly alone... but not entirely. The world has changed. Something has been released. That uncanniness has spilled out of the recond and into the world around you. The record might have finished, but the Ghost remains.