The title is a wink rather than an apology. After a confident run of singles in 2025, this four-track collection, a tight sixteen minutes, arrives like a held breath finally let go. It opens with 'Breathe for Her', and here the Thin Lizzy in their bloodstream sings loudest: a rhythm section that struts rather than merely keeps time, guitar lines that know exactly when to glow and when to bite. It's an immediate, generous opener, the kind of song built to make a room move on first listen.

Second up is 'Love Song', the first track written by the current line-up as a trio, and it announces the new chemistry beautifully. A simple guitar riff blooms as the rhythm section piles in around it, and the vocal melody lands with the easy inevitability of something that was always going to exist. It's the record's most purely joyful moment, and putting it straight after the opener is exactly the right call — the band's freshest idea given pride of place, not tucked away as an afterthought.

'Speak Too Soon' keeps the momentum surging. Polished by what must be hundreds of nights on stages across Liverpool and Manchester, it's a song that knows precisely where its chorus wants to land, and lands it with real conviction — the sound of a band who've earned every bit of that crowd-pleasing confidence.

The EP saves its most atmospheric turn for last. 'Shard of Rain', a song the band sat with for years before finally committing it to tape, rewards that patience handsomely. Shimmering with Cure-ish delay and Big Country's widescreen ache, it's the most textured thing here, layered with a care that suggests a band unwilling to let a good idea go until it was right. Closing on it rather than opening with it is a confident, almost cinematic choice, leaving the listener somewhere lingering and lovely rather than tidily resolved.

What comes through across all four tracks is a band who wear their influences — Thin Lizzy, The Police, The Jam, Green Day, Big Country, U2, The Cure — like a well-loved record collection rather than a set of instructions, filtering them into something that already sounds distinctly their own. The songwriting partnership of Jack and Adam remains the steady heartbeat, but it's the widening into a true three-way conversation, especially on 'Love Song', that gives this EP its real spark.

*Summer of Silence* is a genuine statement of intent, and a thoroughly winning one. It's noisy where it needs to be, tender where it counts, and confident enough in its own songwriting to let four very different tracks sit together as a coherent, satisfying whole. Mercy Kelly sound, unmistakably, like a band who are here to stay — and on this evidence, very much worth sticking around for.