- Brothers Benjamin and Joshua Garden have been living the title of their current release EP since 2013. A definite silence after two albums and an earlier EP or two had them in the vanguard of Australia’s 21st century purveyors of electronica, along with The Presets, Empire of the Sun and Cut/Copy. In the last few years they have teased a track here and there online, but nothing substantial has been forthcoming.

Backtracking, their two albums, EON & NEO represented a bookending of their work in that first decade and a bit of this century. Bright, sparkling synth runs over incessant bass/drum licks on EON moved to a funkier style with NEO, which wasn’t that much of a change in style, but something approaching the dance floor sounds from the mid-to-late '80s, while their first EP RELATIVITY was pure early '80's pop of the style that made Pseudo Echo wildly popular.

The Silence is only four songs long, and coming after two albums comprising twenty-five tracks, this might make the expectant listener feel short changed. Following on from the gothic stylings of EON and the very dancey NEO, this EP promises a good deal more than is in evidence. This is not a criticism -what you get is like fresh green shoots, hinting at things to come- even if all the potential isn't all realised yet, this little taste represents quality over quantity, a much-preferred asset with music appreciation, especially when thinking back to their first EP RELATIVITY which sounds as vibrant and fresh today as it did in 2007.

This new EP opens with the title track and it is everything the Garden brothers were praised for in the past. Joyful chords on a keyboard, then a heavy-duty bass beat and Josh Garden’s steady vocals delivered in a simple, direct style; enunciating the loneliness that our modern life in our loud cities engenders there is still a positive notion that one person may make a difference to each of us.

Next is the almost obligatory millennial anthem Peace In Our Time taking Neville Chamberlain’s hopeful words (which turned out quite quickly to be very wrong) and growing around that phrase: a paean for this and coming generations to rally around. Again, this is so very '80s, when songs about nuclear winter, humanity’s destruction and the rejection of Cold War philosophies were popular.

The last two tracks are different from each other and from what’s preceding. The Shore harks back a little to the rhythmic drive of NEO and the vocal production has a resonance with British electronic-pop-dance artist Rod Thomas aka Bright Light, Bright Light. Lovers Are Strangers finishes the EP with a wistful set of lyrics, but that crisp collection of beats, keyboard hooks and floating vocals lean close to another 1980's alumnus, Erasure.

Josh Garden says, in echo at the end of that last song, “It’s human nature after all”. Though electronica is, sometimes, unfairly tagged as being cold, lifeless and devoid of human feeling, you’d be wrong to think The Silence is anything but hopeful, enticing and deeply enjoyable.

- Blair Martin.