Falling Up’s Silver City makes holiday music sound like midnight in an empty city

Silver City is not what you’d expect from a Falling Up record, and that’s what keeps bringing listeners back to it. The Oregon trio (Jessy Ribordy, Jeremy Miller, and Josh Shroy) built a 12-track Christmas album that barely sounds like one: “Carol of the Bells” and “Oh Holy Night” arrive here rebuilt around Ribordy’s arrangements until they function as architecture rather than familiarity, and the original compositions push further into electronic ambient territory.

Falling Up has operated in the independent margins of alternative and Christian rock for over two decades, moving through post-hardcore origins into experimental and electronic music without settling into one fixed sound. They signed to BEC Recordings early in their career and built a following before pivoting to independence, a shift that made records like Silver City possible. A band with major-label obligations doesn’t make a Christmas album that buries the seasonal warmth under atmospheric rock. That history shapes what Silver City is: a deliberate experiment by people who understood the source material well enough to take it apart without losing it.

The album’s original tracks make the record’s ambitions clear. “Emanuel,” featuring guest vocalist Brittany Wiinikka, extends the record’s reach into something warmer but still unconventional. “The Little Robot” runs past six minutes into territory that feels closer to science fiction than December. Closing track “Silver City Sleeps,” at just over two minutes, lands as the atmospheric exhale the album has been building toward. The listening numbers reflect the audience this music found: roughly 32,000 plays on Last.fm against fewer than 2,000 listeners, a ratio that points to returning listeners rather than broad discovery.

The limitation Silver City carries is also the one it earns. Anyone expecting warmth from the holiday standards will find the arrangements more meditative than welcoming: “Oh Holy Night” becomes a study in stillness rather than a singalong. The album’s Bandcamp-first history and absence from Spotify narrow the path to discovery, which means reaching it requires a specific kind of intention. That’s not separate from what the record is; it’s part of the same set of choices.

Falling Up has remained active into 2026, releasing music and playing shows. That context matters for how Silver City reads: its experimental choices were not a one-off detour but part of a longer creative conversation the band has been conducting for over two decades.

Falling Up performs in Bend, Oregon on June 27.

Tags: alternative rock, Falling Up, Silver City