'Broken Silence' is not a continuation so much as a resurfacing. It arrives after the anger of 'Double Negative', the slow ascent of 'Halfway to the Moon', and the sunlit confidence of 'I Remember Tomorrow'. Not to undo any of them, but to acknowledge what stirred underneath once the noise faded. Somewhere in the clarity and cheer, an older voice woke up. A voice shaped in the 90s. A voice that remembers flannel, distortion, and the particular weight of disappointment that doesn’t explode. It just sits there and hums.

This album lives in that in-between state. Not rock bottom, not redemption. A place of suspension where nothing is actively falling apart, but nothing is being fixed either. It’s the mud. Not as punishment, but as environment. A place you end up when you’re exhausted, cynical, emotionally spent, and still somehow standing. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel here, but there’s also no urgency to find one. It’s okay to lie still. To let the mess soak in. To stop narrating your own recovery.

Unlike the rage of post-punk or the theatrical despair that often followed it, 'Broken Silence' is quieter and heavier. The anger hasn’t vanished, it’s condensed. The sadness hasn’t resolved, it’s become wry. This is the sound of discontent that no longer needs to shout to be heard, but still needs to exist. The guitars grind, not to overwhelm, but to sustain. The vocals don’t plead or accuse, they observe. There’s a firm stance throughout the record, but it isn’t defiant. It’s tired. It’s aware. It’s honest.

At the heart of the album is a distinctly Generation X emotional logic: the shrug after the punchline, the laugh that escapes when the world gives one last, unnecessary kick. That moment when you’ve had a brutal day, you’ve got nothing left, you’re finally ready to collapse into sleep, and fate trips you one last time, just for good measure. And instead of crying, instead of yelling, you just laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s absurd. Because irony is the only language left that still works.

'Broken Silence' sits in that laugh.

It’s not nihilistic, and it’s not hopeful. It’s a question mark. A “what the hell was that?” suspended in feedback and rain. It’s the feeling of remembering who you were before things got curated, optimized, and reframed. When you were allowed to be disappointed without turning it into a lesson. In revisiting that sound, that posture, that emotional frequency, the album isn’t chasing nostalgia. It’s reclaiming a truth that never fully went away.

This is the record you make when you’ve lived long enough to know that not every phase needs closure. Some just need to be voiced. Then you can get up later. Or not. Either way, the silence has finally been broken.