Glassjaw is undeniably one of the must have releases of the new millennium, without any shadow of a doubt this band shatters all expectations as they barrel through the disc's 13 tracks with a runaway truckload of potent emotion. Agonized vocals tear at the seams between both ends of happiness and hatred, blasting through the album without warning, their power slams the listener senseless with a unique reckless abandon. Hard to compare to other acts, this band takes a dash of hardcore, a slice of emo and a splash of nu metal, and ends up creating some of the most passionately pure music ever to be put on CD, reminding of releases from acts such as the Deftones or Far. Vocals are utterly naked, soaked with fear, love and hate they shower the songs dense textures with compelling vibrant emotion that can crush the listener with a tidal wave of torrid enthusiasm. Frontman Daryl's vocals are without question some of the purest oral expressions ever captured on an album. Starkly beautiful, moving and tumultuous with genuine rage and hurt, its close to impossible for the listener to escape feeling his words convulse within their soul on a spiritual level. Guitars are slick and lumbering, featuring a surprisingly standard tuning, the emphasis is put to feeling and ambiance rather than guitar heroics, as the two guitarists skewer each others parts with quivering delay drenched riffs that resonate with an organic tinged distortion. An extensive amount of attention is put to the smaller details of the music guitarwise, as the less prevalent parts seep throughout this album like a fine mist, light strums embrace and entrance, while the effect laden power riffs punch through the speakers hitting their mark like a sniper. The ability for the bands two guitarists Justin and Todd to allow the riffs to dissipate and wither into silence is uncanny, and the overall natural feel of everything played by them is a beautiful accompaniment to Daryl's incredibly talented vocals. Bass plays a fundamental part throughout the bands music, cementing the song structure in place while providing a launching pad for the guitars to excel at sonic innovation. Closely linked with the drums, the lowend smears itself from growling picked riffs to lush strumming that gently caresses, all the while prodding the tracks energy along grace or the force of a jackhammer, easily inserting itself into the music making it an integral piece of the puzzle. Drums feature a moderate tuning that creates a slack feeling, complimenting the generally earthly feel this album contains. Snare improvisation, straight forward hardcore kick drum work and loose jazz tom rolls all surface throughout the bands material and in essence fuel the musical fire. The thing that separates Glassjaw from other acts is their heartfelt purity, a quality which no doubt was also captured in part by the production work done on this album by infamous producer Ross Robinson. The bands honesty really shines through as they don't try to hide behind guttural screams that try to sound angry, instead it's almost as if this band has stuck a faucet into their souls and let the contents within pour out unfiltered onto the cellophane that makes up this disc. A true innocence and precarious fury are highlights of the bands music and they indeed go a long way in fortifying the almost naive quality the music possesses. Perhaps one downside to the CD could be vocalist Daryl's tendency to get carried away with dissident screams, losing focus of the song to instead verbally exorcise his inner demons. Still though, even when this occurs, it's nothing that could negatively affect this amazing band. Never before has silence been so loud, has anger been so sedating or have feelings been expressed so simply, yet so complexly, Glassjaw have created something that reaches far beyond the confines of the classifications of music, this is an unrestrained form of cathartic art that cleanses any who listen, take note, for this is everything you ever wanted to know and hear about music in its unaltered form.
(5 / 5)