If Brit Awards were handed out to Best Kept Secrets or Lamentably Lost Legends, Pugwash wouldn’t be able to move under the weight of their gongs. In the 20 years since the Irish band was formed by Thomas Walsh – an ELO, XTC and Beach Boys nut from Drimnagh, south Dublin – their reputation has grown by stealth and they’ve caught the attention of almost all of Walsh’s musical heroes, but mainstream success has remained frustratingly, tantalisingly just out of reach.
Well if it’s ever going to happen, it’s now, with the release of their seventh studio album Silverlake. It’s not only Thomas’s best body of work to date, but an album which leaves you marvelling at how effortlessly he can conjure up so many heavenly pop gems after all these years. “I still live in a small house with nine guitars, a Dansette, a telly and a fuckin’ mellotron,” says Walsh. “I collect records and live hand-to-mouth. We’ve made some great records but most of them have gone nowhere.”
Silverlake differs from recent Pugwash albums in one major respect: it’s essentially a collaboration between two men – Thomas and Jason Falkner. (The four-piece who recorded 2011’s Top 20 The Olympus Sound and 2015’s Play This Intimately (As If Among Friends) has now disbanded). As a former member of Jellyfish, respected solo artist, and musician, Falkner – who’s worked with everyone from Paul McCartney to Air – is another underrated artist with a hugely loyal international following. For fans of these two cult heroes (and there are plenty) this promised to be a dream ticket…and it delivers in droves. The result is a classy pop-rock feast featuring Walsh’s endlessly hooky melodies and Falkner’s unmistakeable sonic footprint.
After two decades Thomas has little to prove. Despite certain disappointments, he’s received great acclaim from where it counts – his peers and equals, plus Ivor Novello, Choice Music Prize and Meteor Awards nominations, and two Top 40 albums (with The Duckworth Lewis Method). The only way is up! As Thomas concludes: “Some people have suggested, ‘Oh why don’t you change the sound of your music?’ But…I love the sound of my records! They ask if I would try something different. I could, but you can’t go out there and make a record just to please other people.”