The Radio Silence

 

The Radio Silence were a band from Raleigh, North Carolina, active in the mid-2000s. The history of this band remains an unknown to me. Their name is a common metaphor, making them difficult to Google, and the Wayback Machine has no working archives of their website (the same address now redirects to Bandcamp). The show they played for their LP debut had One Amazin' Kid as an opener. The liner notes don't shed any light on the band's history or discography, save for mentioning that the album was a long time in production.

Musically, The Radio Silence are similar to the other bands working in the same sphere who were also too late to be considered part of emo's second wave despite having much more in common with that period than the third wave. Their sound exists on a sliding scale between midwest emo and indie rock, with the needle inclined towards the latter. There's no mistaking the midwest emo in their makeup, however. On their old MP3.com page, the band listed some other acts they considered similar and one of them was The Gloria Record, which is honestly a pretty good comparison.

In 2004, the band had what I assume was an EP or a demo called Demonstration, which they made available at shows prior to releasing their full-length album, Narrative, in 2006 (the album has a 2005 date on the artwork but it must have been delayed). Demonstration isn't on the Bandcamp and aside from the mention in this article, I can't find any trace of it. The band also had an acoustic demo from 2003 called last night and the rest of your life, recorded prior to the project gaining a full line up. I don't know how many tracks it had, but I've recovered two, both of which were rerecorded for the album. There was also a live version of "police station, 5 a.m." that was once on MP3.com but isn't available in the archives.

In March of 2024 someone added three instrumental tracks to this Bandcamp, purportedly recorded in 2004. It says these songs were intended for prayer and meditation, and were recorded live; there's no additional information. I don't know if these songs were from Demonstration, or intended for a pre-album project, or represent a side project from the band members, or are just a practice and\or jam session. The title of the release, Maundy Thursday, never came up at any point during my research on The Radio Silence. In the end, what we have is a previously unknown release that only raises more questions.

Edit 4/12/24: Recently, the Bandcamp page was updated again to include Demonstration. It is indeed a demo, recorded throughout 2003 and released in 2004. The Maundy Thursday songs are not a part of it and therefore represent a separate release.

narrative + demo tracks