Silk return with dark shoegaze anthem Clementine

Music Review | 5th Mar, 2026

After a busy 2025 that saw them drop three well-received singles and rack up plenty of miles on the Irish touring circuit, Silk are back with what might be their most fully realised release yet: Clementine.

Last year’s run included festival stops like GazeFest, where Silk shared stages with bands such as Whitelands and Sweet Sweet Noise. It was a solid statement of intent, but Clementine feels like the moment everything locks into place.

Silk is the brainchild of Michael Smyth, formerly the songwriter and guitarist behind Virgins. Since launching the project, Smyth has kept things fiercely DIY, handling the songwriting, performing, and recording himself. That one-person approach gives Silk a distinctly personal edge, it’s less a traditional band and more a creative outlet where every sound traces back to a single set of instincts.

Clementine leans hard into that vision. The track is powered by a pounding rhythm section and massive layers of fuzz and feedback-soaked guitar. Vocals drift low in the mix in true shoegaze fashion, acting more like another texture than a focal point. It’s dense, abrasive in places, and deliberately overwhelming, but that’s exactly the point.

Rather than chasing retro vibes, Silk push the classic shoegaze palette somewhere darker and heavier. Clementine feels modern without abandoning the genre’s hazy DNA.

Lyrically, the track digs into familiar but unsettling territory: the strange experience of time constantly moving forward while memory slips through our fingers. It’s reflective without being sentimental, more like watching old moments flicker in and out of focus.

Speaking about the song — and the upcoming record — Smyth says:

There is no beauty in perfection, it feels fake and manufactured to me. I want the record to feel real, so this is the sound of visceral self-expression, of cooking valves, speakers pushing air and real drums straining under every hit.

For the visuals, Smyth teamed up with photographer and filmmaker Anna Burnett (aka @annalouge.jpeg). Burnett had already spent time on the road with Silk, hopping in the van during an early tour and shooting promo photos around Belfast.

The video for Clementine was filmed inside an abandoned office block, a building that now doubles as a TV drama police station set and houses several artist studios. The result is a grainy, dreamlike visual that mirrors the song’s themes: fragments of memory flashing briefly before fading again. Burnett handled the video direction, while Smyth designed the artwork himself.

Clementine is just the beginning, too. Silk have also announced a new mini-album, Auralux, arriving in May via Blowtorch Records (vinyl) and Shoredive Records (CD). Alongside the release, an extensive run of Irish and UK tour dates is already in the works.

If Clementine is anything to go by, Silk’s next chapter is going to be loud, raw, and impossible to ignore.

You can catch the band live here:

-May 14th Galway, The Ol' 55

-May 15th Cork, Fred Zeppelins

-May 16th Limerick, TBC

-May 28th Dublin, Whelans Upstairs

-May 30th Belfast, Ulster Sports Club

-June 16th Glasgow, Hug and Pint

-June 17th Hull, The New Adelphi

-June 18th Northampton, The Lab

-June 19th Brighton, Folklore Rooms

-June 20th London, Folklore Rooms

-June 21st Edinburgh, Banshee Labyrinth

-Aug 28th Dublin, GazeFest

-Aug 29th Belfast, GazeFest

The single, Clementine, is available through all streaming platforms.

Photo Credit: @annalogue.jpeg