Philadelphia’s own Neo Brightwell has never been one to color inside the lines, and on “We Didn’t Survive to Be Quiet,” he doesn’t just step over them — he sets them on fire. Billing his sound as Moonshine Disco, Brightwell fuses outlaw gospel, queer liberation energy, Americana grit, and dance-floor propulsion into something that feels half revival, half riot. If his earlier work wrestled with reckoning, this record, thirteen tracks strong, turns that reckoning into movement. It’s cinematic, political, literary, and gloriously unafraid.
The album opens with “The House Was Haunted, But It Knew My Name,” and right out of the gate, you’re dropped into a dimly lit room of memory. Slow, meditative guitar strums echo like footsteps in an empty hallway while Brightwell’s deep, grave voice delivers lines that feel etched in smoke: “The wallpaper curled like it missed my shame…” There’s something sacred and eerie about it. Midway through, drums and cymbals bustle in, nudging the song from solitary reflection into a subtle groove.
By the time the title track, “We Didn’t Survive to Be Quiet,” rolls around, the mood shifts from haunted to fired up. The guitars strum faster, glistening with urgency, drums thump with a lively rush, and a harmonica slices through like a call to arms. Brightwell’s delivery lightens but sharpens in intent. The message is clear: no one clawed their way through fire just to whisper.
Later, “The Garden That Found Me” leans into heavy bass and vigorous drums, percussion splashing and sparkling against a smug, grounded groove. His voice trails lightly over the weighty instrumentation, “I came with nothing but a torn-down name…” with resilience humming underneath.
All in all, “We Didn’t Survive to Be Quiet” doesn’t just ask to be heard. It insists on it, turning survival into sound and silence into something downright impossible.
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Review by: Naomi Joan