CIEL — Call Me Silent
Released October 24, 2025 – Brighton, United Kingdom
Genre: Indie Pop / Indie Rock / Shoegaze
There’s something unmistakably luminous yet quietly defiant about CIEL’s music. On their debut album Call Me Silent, the Brighton-based trio transform introspection into a kind of sonic light — delicate, glimmering, and tinged with melancholy. What began as a meeting of minds on England’s South Coast has evolved into one of the UK’s most distinctive alt-pop voices, uniting dreamlike shoegaze textures with raw, human vulnerability.
Formed by Dutch-born vocalist and guitarist Michelle Hindriks, along with Jordi van Dijk (bass) and Tim Spence (drums), CIEL draw upon their diverse backgrounds to craft a sound that feels both cosmopolitan and deeply personal. Their music captures the spirit of the post-punk and grunge bands that shaped the 1990s — echoes of The Cure, Garbage, and Mazzy Star float in their DNA — but filtered through a distinctly modern sensibility.
Between fragility and power
Produced by Steven Ansell and mastered by Katie Tavini, Call Me Silent is a meticulously constructed album that still breathes with raw energy. The guitars shimmer, the bass throbs like a heartbeat, and Hindriks’ voice glides through it all — soft but unyielding, like glass catching light. What makes CIEL stand out isn’t just their musicianship, but the emotional intelligence behind it. The record feels lived-in, quietly bruised yet full of grace.
The title track, “Call Me Silent,” embodies the album’s essence: a meditation on identity, belonging, and the invisible boundaries we live within. Hindriks has spoken about drawing inspiration from her own experience with autism — using songwriting as a space for expression where words alone might fail. That vulnerability shapes the record’s tone. Every chorus feels like an opening; every reverb-soaked phrase lingers like an unspoken thought.
Elsewhere, “Swallowing Your Pride” and “Somebody Else” capture the emotional turbulence of connection and distance — friendship, empathy, exhaustion. CIEL’s lyrics never drift into cliché; instead, they carve small truths out of fleeting moments. The band doesn’t shout their feelings — they let them resonate quietly, trusting the listener to lean in.
A sound both familiar and forward-looking
CIEL’s early recognition from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq, KEXP, and WFUV wasn’t coincidence. Their music stands at the intersection of accessibility and atmosphere — songs that shimmer enough for indie-pop playlists but carry the grit and introspection of post-punk. They call it “grunge-pop finery,” and it fits: bright and dark, fragile and forceful, nostalgic yet unbound by the past.
There’s also a sense of place in their sound. Brighton’s salt-stained coast and late-night clubs seep into the reverb; the air feels humid with feedback and introspection. This geography of sound — half-melancholy, half-hope — gives Call Me Silent a cinematic presence. It’s not just an album to hear, but to inhabit.
The emotional core
What makes Call Me Silent such an affecting debut is its refusal to separate beauty from discomfort. Hindriks and her bandmates understand that emotional resonance doesn’t require grandeur; it requires honesty. Beneath the hazy production lies something deeply human — the tremor in a voice, the space between drum hits, the moment of recognition in a lyric.
Each track feels like a small act of translation: turning anxiety into rhythm, silence into sound. It’s an album about the inner dialogue we carry — the need to be understood, the fear of overexposure, the quiet pride of survival. In that sense, Call Me Silent isn’t just a collection of songs; it’s a self-portrait rendered in feedback and melody.
Final thoughts
CIEL’s Call Me Silent stands as one of the most emotionally articulate records to come out of the UK indie scene in recent years. It carries the elegance of shoegaze, the intimacy of dream pop, and the restless pulse of post-punk — but what truly defines it is empathy.
There’s a line of quiet rebellion running through this album: the insistence that softness is not weakness, and that silence can be a voice in itself. CIEL prove that introspection can roar, even when whispered.
Intimate, textured, and luminously human, “Call Me Silent” captures the beauty of finding your voice — even when the world isn’t listening.
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