Throwback Thursdays #1! - Glassjaw

Droppin' Knowledge On Fools!
I'm starting a new segment to this blog called "Throwback Thursdays" in which I will be reviewing a non-new release and giving some background to an older band or developments since releasing the album being reviewed...dig?

Anyway, I thought that a good band/album to kick off Throwback Thursdays would be Glassjaw and their groundbreaking 1999 album Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence. Many of you may already own this album, but there is a surprising number of modern hardcore kids who don't know about Glassjaw, which, quite frankly, is a sin in the world of hardcore music.
Glassjaw is the sonic representation of the term "acquired taste".
Daryl Palumbo has fronted Glassjaw since they were formed in 1993. To put it simply, Daryl Palumbo is the reason that hardcore music is what it is to day. Prior to Glassjaw's development, many underground punk bands from the 1980s and 1990s had utilized yelling in their music, largely because many of them simply couldn't sing, and for emotional emphasis. Daryl Palumbo, however, took the yell and made it into a scream. Guttural, raspy screams abound on Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence intertwined with Daryl's pseudo-drunken singing. This combination became the foundation for many hardcore punk bands that followed Glassjaw, and eventually translated into the screams that we now hear on albums such as The Devil Wears Prada's Plagues or even Bring Me The Horizon's Count Your Blessings.
Glassjaw is musically unrelenting...heavy yet melodic - structured chaos. Glassjaw and Botch pretty much created what some people have come to call "chaoscore" but that's a terrible label. Think about The Chariot and Norma Jean...they were influenced by Glassjaw and Botch.
Lyrical content on Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence is fairly vulgar, and heavily focused on Daryl's ex-girlfriend who, apparently, was a bit of a slut. When he isn't singing/screaming about her, most of his lyrics focus on his constant battle with Crohn's disease. All of Palumbo's lyrics are heavily emotional and based on personal experience...often to the point of him being overwhelmed and unable to finish a line (Listen to "Pretty Lush"...you'll know) which is one of the main reasons that Glassjaw's music is so captivating - it simply overwhelms the listener and even the performers.
All-in-all, Glassjaw's Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence isn't exactly the type of album you'd just sit in your room and listen to. However, in a live setting, or played really loud in a car, where you can truly embrace the art beneath the chaos...I challenge you to find something better.

But like I said...It's an acquired taste.
Songs To Check Out: All of them. But mostly Pretty Lush, Lovebites and Razorlines, Her Middle Name Was Boom, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence.

Drownload Link! : http://www.mediafire.com/?znt5aznuzjj#1

-John-


Edit: I have decided against continuing Throwback Thursdays.
They're no fun.