Hindenburg Variations is the debut album from Silver Heir. It’s an album that was decades in the making. According to the album’s “making of” blog, the band wrote some of the songs in 2008 directly in the midst of the once-in-a-lifetime crisis that was the Great Recession. As things often do, the band fell apart after college, having never really finished their first music project. Many years of living life passed, and yet another once-in-a-lifetime crisis – Covid-19 – occurred. This spurred the band of college friends to come together once again and finish their long-forgotten music project.
I only mention this because I believe it is important to understand that this is an album that was directly birthed by not one but two “once-in-a-lifetime” crises. It is often grim in lyrical theme while also feeling uplifting in its musical presentation. This juxtaposition is striking and enduring; it’s cavalier in a kind of way that I think really hones in on what it feels like to be a millennial. It’s the kind of feeling that just hits when you have spent the majority of your adult life going from one crisis after another.
One last thing I would like to mention from the “making-of” blog is that the name of the album is a reference to the Hindenburg disaster. Yet another once-in-a-lifetime disaster that changed the world. Except it wasn’t once. The Hindenburg was the most well-known airship disaster; other ‘variations’ occurred before the Hindenburg, but they weren’t as well-publicized and failed to elicit the same effect. This is an important thing to note because I believe that each track on the album is presented as various kinds of tragedy.
“Big Storm” is a perfect showcase of the juxtaposition I mentioned earlier. It is a very upbeat classic rock song. The lyrics, however, are pretty harrowing. It’s about a storm wiping out everything. One of the last lines in the song is “While the infinite scrolling banality keeps me alive, and the water comes down”. It is a pretty visual lyric to me and invokes that meme of the dog drinking coffee in the room that is on fire. All set to a soundtrack of driven vocals and distorted guitar. As you listen, you find yourself grooving to an apocalypse, and you understand the song and think maybe this is fine.
Not every song is about a massive, earth-shattering tragedy. Some songs are about more common and perhaps more benign scenes in the grand scheme of things. “Wrong to Think” deals with regrets in the aftermath of an ended relationship. The song eventually concluded that regardless of intention or desire for atonement, life carries you like a wave onward. What I liked most about this song is the piano that is laced through the background of the song. It has a hopeful tone and tempo to it, suggesting to listeners that the song is ultimately about hope.
Finally, I want to talk about “Empty Room”, which is probably the gloomiest song on the album in both theme and music. The music is deep and foreboding and doesn’t offer any threads of hope like the piano in “Wrong to Think” or the upbeat in the devil-may-care attitude of “Big Storm”. I have honestly spent more time than I probably should have trying to figure out exactly what this song is trying to convey. After hitting 3 or 4 wildly different interpretations, I have finally decided that the goal is to invoke feelings of alienation and depression. I don’t feel like it’s trying to tell a specific story, but rather just offers snapshots of sorrow. This is my favorite song on the album because of how enigmatic it is.
Hindenburg Variations is an interesting take on a concept album that I believe executes on its themes well. The music has a lot of depth and provides listeners with a lot of intricacies to take in. I particularly enjoyed the piano work. It is engaging, and I found myself listening intently to each track, waiting for the piano to make an appearance. In my opinion, the album is definitely worth a few plays through for anyone who enjoys indie rock or quirky concept albums.
Take a listen to “Wrong To Think” from Hindenburg Variations, and follow Silver Heir on their socials, below.
Written by David Robison
