Silica Gel Release Third Album 'Ballad Of You'
South Korean indie band Silica Gel released their third album, Ballad Of You, on Thursday, August 20, 2026, through label CAM. The record draws its concept from Tezuka Osamu's unfinished manga Phoenix and features the highest proportion of English-language lyrics in the band's catalogue to date. NME reviewed the album the same day, calling the four-piece a "perplexing, engrossing presence" in Korean indie music.
The concept: Phoenix and "spiral molting"
Phoenix is a 12-part manga series in which Tezuka repeatedly grapples with themes of reincarnation and immortality. Silica Gel took that as a jumping-off point, developing their own concept they call "spiral molting" — reincarnation not as repeating the same life, but as continuous forward motion.
Vocalist Kim Hanjoo sings on the urgent "Big Void" about carrying once-banished words into the next life. The band's self-titled 2016 debut included "Everybody Does," with its lean 1980s alt-pop texture, while 2023's "Ryudejakeiru" opened things up into wider arrangements — a line this new record continues.
Tracks and sound
Drummer Kim Geonjay, speaking to NME last summer about the band's collaboration with Japanese Breakfast on "NamgungFEFERE," said the band has just one goal: to do "something fun." Ballad Of You largely follows through on that: "Crybaby" is a dense but bright interlude, single "Molecular Gastronomy" packs a sharp guitar solo between chiming textures, and "Postpink" moves forward with a swaggering groove.
The album's midpoint track, "You Just Wanna Have Some Fun," is the record's biggest contrast: rather than push playfulness to its limit, the band delivers an instrumental led by organ chords that fades into a hum by the end — NME calls it a quietly placed joke at the album's core.
NME's verdict
NME notes that while Ballad Of You is dense with ideas, it doesn't hit as hard overall as the band's 2023 predecessor, Power Andre 99, and tracks like "Up Quark" have passages that drift. Still, the review argues that even in those stretches, the band's distinctiveness is enough to hold listeners — and that this, more than the shift to English lyrics, may be what brings Silica Gel wider international attention.
Release info
- Album: Ballad Of You (third album)
- Release date: Thursday, August 20, 2026
- Label: CAM
- Tracks mentioned: "Crybaby," "Molecular Gastronomy," "Postpink," "You Just Wanna Have Some Fun," "Big Void," "Up Quark"