Silver Gore take us on a track-by-track tour of their debut EP, ‘Dogs In Heaven’
While you might think that the combination of a Guildhall School of Music dropout and a classically trained vocalist might produce something that tries a little too hard to be high-brow, the ethos of art pop duo Silver Gore is far from the snooty elitism that one might picture them having.
Over the course of their six-track debut EP, Dogs In Heaven, the duo of Ava Gore and Ethan P Flynn bridge a gap between indie rock and art pop in ways that only the most musically astute pairing could possibly create, managing to be delicate and deliberate with their touches in both areas. Songs brim with life and vibrancy, but there’s nothing there that feels overwrought or needlessly extravagant; these are two young masters at work who understand the inner workings of how to craft sumptuous pop.
Anyone with their finger on the pulse of the UK underground will know Flynn from his own solo output, with debut album Abandon All Hope and early EPs such as Universal Deluge and B-Sides & Rarities Vol 1 straddling similar areas, adding baroque and folk rock touches to what are ostensibly pop songs. It’s not exactly a traditionalist’s idea of the genre, but there’s a hook present in everything he’s done.
However, his real pop sensibilities come to light through the work he’s done alongside other artists, having written songs for the likes of FKA Twigs, Nia Archives, and even worked alongside David Byrne. These are the sort of names you don’t get to work alongside without possessing an innate knack for delivering forward-thinking ideas, and while his work for these artists may be more celebrated, that doesn’t mean he’s spent all his creative brilliance on those he collaborates with outside of his own ventures.
With Gore, who plays drums in Flynn’s live band, he’s pitted alongside someone his equal; someone who can match his songwriting ability and who understands how to bounce off his inventiveness with ideas that prove themselves to be just as maverick and unexpected. While she doesn’t possess the same kind of CV as her bandmate, Dogs In Heaven exists as her opportunity to flex her talents in a way that showcases just what she’s made of.
Handling the majority of the lyrical and vocal duties, these half-dozen songs are written and delivered with an assuredness which was evident from the rapturous debut single, ‘25 Metres’, which the duo released in 2023. Now surrounded by five other songs, we get a clearer picture of how this fits into the duo’s vision, and how themes and patterns begin to emerge from Gore’s introspective words.
Gore explained to us that a ‘Creature’ joins them at multiple points on the record, and also appears in the artwork, which was meant as a way to personify “the emotional struggle that I was going through at the time when writing these songs.” She added, “It was equally the best time of my life and the worst. In this way, the Creature ‘sleeps in my arms’. It is a silent presence that lurks, embodying the terrifying, distraught time but also a protective and familiar feeling.”
To get a greater understanding of each song, its themes, and how they came about between the duo, we asked Ava Gore to give us a track-by-track insight into every song on Dogs In Heaven.
Dogs In Heaven track by track, in the words of Silver Gore:
‘A Scar’s Length’
We begin the record with perhaps the poppiest cut, but just because it possesses an uplifting mood does not automatically mean that it’s a song of celebration. If anything, the message that Gore is choosing to convey to the audience is that times are going to be hard, and you will struggle, and in an attempt to uplift the listener, she tries to deliver a message of hope to someone who feels lost.
Gore says: “This song reflects the feeling of losing one’s sense of self, including even the intrinsic need for listening to music. At this time, music was too painful to engage with. Also, about having to save yourself from yourself. Ultimately, though, the song portrays the necessity of being triumphant and exultant in the struggle to find a way out of the ‘mess we made’. I had to start enjoying music again through dancing and losing myself, and so we wanted to write this to begin to do that.”
‘Dogs In Heaven’
The title track also appears to have a theme of community and building a healthy support network for yourself, but also highlights how important it is for you to have to solve things alone, and how you can sit with the aftermath of what comes from your actions. However, the inspiration for the song is rooted in something of a more unusual bit of source material.
Gore says: “‘Dogs In Heaven’ is an ode to a film I grew up on as a child [the 1989 animated film, All Dogs Go To Heaven]. I spent lots of hours alone watching this film on VHS with our family dog and I fantasised about being the little girl in the film with her entourage of dogs with everyone looking out for one another. This song is about making decisions and the unexpected consequences that come from them.”
‘All The Good Men’
While the two previous songs have dealt with the feelings of hopelessness that come with suffering setbacks, the EP’s mid-point serves up a track that tries its best to deliver hope, and encourages the listener to show resilience in times of dire need. On the other hand, there are also themes of being mistreated, and having the guts to persist as one is when you’re being held back by their sinister actions.
Gore says: “This song is about having the confidence and will to pick yourself back up and try again. It is also about men behaving badly and managing to keep going despite them.”
‘Forever’
The other half of the EP’s centre is perhaps the most complex and detailed song on the record, both thematically and musically, taking a few cues from the maximalist multi-part epics that fellow experimental pop duo Jockstrap have made themselves known for. While Gore and Flynn trade lines about relationships with others coming to a sudden end when you least expect, with the line “all the White Cliffs of Dover are shedding after dark” meant to evoke feelings of things starting again abruptly, the way in which Gore explains the chaos is poetic, and describes it in a way that makes these struggles sound natural.
Gore says: “Silent avalanches in the night. This same idea of silent bad occurrences, being silenced- a silent and still picture begging, imploring. No one is allowed to talk about bad things that have happened; everyone is expected to carry on without a fuss. The scream/breakdown after the first verse is the sound I imagine these cliffs make when they shed an avalanche.”
‘Celestial Intervention’
The slowest cut on the EP relies on soft synth palettes and hushes vocals over gently strummed guitar patterns, and the honest baring of emotions turns it into the most desperate-sounding song in this short collection. You feel as though Gore is at her wits’ end, and is looking to a higher power to see if she can try and make sense of it all.
Gore says: “It’s about not being able to rely on the people around you that you trust and being desperately lost in feeling like you have no one to depend on and no one is depending on you. It’s a song that is searching for answers about what is right or expected in friendships and the world more broadly.”
’25 Metres’
The duo’s debut single caps things off in style, with its bombastic drum beat symbolic of a newfound confidence that has been built up over the course of the five prior tracks as Gore has come to terms with all of the turmoil and change that she’s had to process. ‘25 Metres’ is the triumphant end to an EP filled with dread, and sees her reborn as someone brave enough to step out into the world and embrace the loving relationships she’s been blessed with, rather than ruminating on the horrors that came before.
Gore says: “A song about love and being scared and realising that you’re allowing yourself to fall in love and to feel the emotion despite the consequences. Letting go. Rising up. Ecstasy.”
