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Rating: Pure Misogyny.
These words might best describe the album in question, but I won't dwell so little; instead, I will dig deeper and more specifically.
It is the year 2000, and various bands like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Incubus have enormous success with their new-metal. Roadrunner, as a response, decides to sign on a decidedly offbeat group (most of their roster in those years was predominantly metal...) with the rather extravagant name Glassjaw.
The band is very young and features as vocalist a spectacled, skinny, awkward-looking young guy. Daryl Palumbo with his group records an album with strong emotional hues but of post-hardcore lineage.
It is titled as best as this kind of CD could be titled “Everything you ever wanted to know about the silence”. Schizophrenia and melody go hand in hand on the same album and more often in the same song.
There isn't a song, and I mean not one, in which Palumbo (who in the following years will be considered one of the best singers) does not "attack" women, girls, and the stories had with them. The lyrics are probably the best part of the album. In truth, one would have to go and read them because often they are not very understandable. The music, however, is truly great, as is indeed the singing.
“Siberian Kiss”, the first single, is one of the album's strongest tracks in which good Daryl in the chorus says, "I keep you jealously inside me, in a photo shaped like a kiss, a kiss shaped like a bullet." Right after comes another song that made Glassjaw history and is still performed live today; that is "When One Eight Become Two Zeros" in which Palumbo lets go into a sharp phrase, "you're not another woman, you're another, another pastime for a boy like me." Follow the punk of “Ry Ry's Song” and another historic song, “Lovebites and Razorlines,” in which our hero constantly says in the song, "do you want to fuck me now? You fucking whore." Among the other songs worth noting are definitely the slow “Her Middle Name Was Boom” and “Piano.”
While the last two tracks deserve a few more words. Namely, the title track, a stunning 5-minute and 37-second ride alternating whispered parts with inhuman screams. This is probably the track that best translates in music what Glassjaw is, and the lyrics, as always, are of unique beauty. The closing track and another gem of the album is “Motel of the White Locust,” also beautiful, where Daryl says, "who could ever, who the fuck could ever take my place?"
Finally, watch out for the ghost track entitled “Losten,” a poignant piece played entirely on the piano in which Palumbo seems to want to make peace with his demons, but just when it seems that it is so, he lets go of the last verse in which he says, "Now I know I want you, I know you are listening, this is my chance to tell you everything, my only chance to tell you "I Love You" but I waited too long, the recordings are over."
Two years later and with the same producer (Ross Robinson) but with a different record label (from Roadrunner to Warner), Glassjaw will release “Worship And Tribute.” Due to the illness Palumbo has always suffered from, the rare Crohn's disease, the group will stop, fueling gossip that Glassjaw had broken up. This is not so, and among the countless side projects of the members (among other things, Daryl also dabbles as a DJ...) a new official album of the band could come out around mid-2008.
We will wait impatiently, hoping to hear yet another masterpiece from the jaws of glass.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Pretty Lush (02:59)
I draw them on reckless, etched in, scratched in like resurrection.
Your sins are killing you and you can bet they'll get me too.
I've got to give some to get some.
Mining in the river, standing in the rain.
Down on your knees while you heave at the drain.
You can lead a whore to water and you can bet she'll drink and follow orders.
And I said, "Is this what you wanted?"
"Is this what you needed?"
Give it some more time.
Tonight I'm going to a party, but its already started without me.
I aced philosophy and mastered the art of spiritual phrase.
I've got to give some to get some.
The disco ball spins away another year.
I wish you a broken heart and a happy new year.
Only three words come to mind ("True Till' Death")
02 Siberian Kiss (03:50)
Give me back my pictures of me.
Me, you and him makes three.
It figures the wheezing will measure your rate of depress,
And i hope you know.
Like a bitch in heat,
I hope she know.
So put another penny in and turn the crank until the frames cease to move .
And the movie turns into a photo..
A photo the size of a kiss, I hope she knows.
(screaming)
Staring at this parisian sex flick where the characters don't meet,
The characters don't speak
The characters are like mirrors facing mirrors:
Space always expanding.
So put another coin in and turn the crank,
Until the frames cease to move.
And the movie turns into a photo..
a photo the size of my fist, I hope she knows.
A hiccup in paradise,
I keep you jealously to myself.
In photos the size of a kiss,
A kiss in the shape of a bullet.
On phone lines and a letterhead I'm dying about. I'm dying about.
(x2)
I've watched you whore yourself for one more thing.
Why don't you sell yourself for one more?
There's always one more thing.
Why don't you sell yourself?
If I can't have you no one will!
Pushing a lover to love another.
Are you turned on?
Are you turned on?
(x2)
A hiccup in paradise
I keep you jealously to myself,
In a photo the size of a kiss
A kiss in the shape of a bullet.
On phone lines and a letterhead
I'm dying about. I'm dying about.
(x2)
A hiccup in paradise,
I keep you jealously to myself.
in a photo the size of a kiss,
a kiss in the shape of a bullet.
I keep you jealously to myself. (x4)
A kiss in the shape of a bullet
04 Ry Ry's Song (03:31)
There's a woman sitting in a motel room counting minutes
and she's adding to her list of, "one hour loves."
She's tired and the new will do, she'll replace the body,
his friends are good for bang-bang! An amiable hobby.
she's got a secret.
Just keep it and sleep with it.
and he can't believe a thing you've said.
"We're going nowhere" n' "fair is fair."
and he cant believe a damn thing you say,
"We're going nowhere" and "fair is fair."
The way you play with lives is such a big disguise we swear that,
we're not gonna' take it.
The way you play with lives is such a big disguise we swear,
we're not running naked.
There's a man who's sitting in a motel waiting for a hooker
that he never applied for, is it even her?
and he cant believe a damn thing you say,
"We're going nowhere" and "fair is fair."
The way you play with lives is such a big disguise we swear that,
we're not gonna' take it, no more
The way you fucked his life is such a big disguise we swear,
we're not running naked.
Just when it's perfect,
It's finite, he calls it.
she said "it's over, it's over..so long."
Just when it's perfect,
It's finite, he calls it.
she said "it's over, it's over. so long"
The way you play with lives is such a big disguise we swear
that, it's over, it's over, it's over
The way you fucked his life is such a big disguise we swear,
we're not running naked.
he would stay forever just to say he saw you leave,
and maybe things wouldn't be this way
he would stay forever just to say he saw you on your knees.
I burn the lamp, when I burn, when,
I do I do everything I do for you,
But he hates you, hates you,
And I guess it's nothing new for you.
05 Lovebites and Razorlines (04:09)
"Who you fucking now?" I use my slit wrist to sign my name
with and when you can't compete with the Joneses,
Gun em' all down (even the father).
You filthy whore.
Shut up and swallow my pride for me.
Move closer or drive further Suck on the end of this dick that cums lead,
but first I'm coming after you all.
It's ladies night at the bar but she smokes a mans' cigar.
I guess she's dying.
oh well.
I don't give a fuck about your dignity.
That's the bastard in me.
I know a girl who sells herself around and
I'm sure one day she'll sign autographs in your town.
Looking back into my diary, what makes me say those things?
What causes my laughter at another's disaster? it's the bastard in me.
You live in shit and you will eat your own way out.
I am too fly and shy.
Like no other guy.
Too fly and shy just for you.
I'll mark you all.
06 Hurting and Shoving (She Should Have Let Me Sleep) (03:28)
When I get back
Pre-break of dawn
hear the ring it's me
live from a pay phone
talking in the rain.
Things pan out exactly as i say they will.
Will I be less happy
when I get back?
Two hand in one glove
as if we were poor.
The hard up make the soup from stones
like the poor before them did before.
You say the waiting could crush your heart.
But it's nothing new to me
have you crave me so desperately
but I know
how when you need me you bleed for me,
though now I'm gone you fill my shoes with new
fans.
Always and forever
we are apart and may she see
she'd be free rejoicing in distance
if she only let me sleep.
Will things make less happy
when I get back?
Absence makes the heart grow still.
Abuse the hunt; confuse the kill.
I know, I know.
Make the dead feel deader
deader.
Make the dead sleep nights with a razor
waiting.
Kill the prey.
I'll hold my child's head underwater.
If it's a boy, I was joking
if it's a daughter, I'll say I did what I did
because I had to...
And if you find my kid later
tell her I laughed too.
We just might work out fine
because I love you enough
to let you give the pain that I want
...And when you do
I just might fuck you
enough to love you.
Once upon my night stand
lied letters piled in columns
postmarked Middle Island
out east in the country of Solemn.
08 Her Middle Name Was Boom (04:15)
She cured the plague of the holy child.
And all the while, she just walked in.
And "boom" she said,
in her room with her red fingernails
and a grip on the answers.
When it's home..
and I'm broken, let's fix.
When it's home..
and I'm swollen, let's kiss.
When it's home..
and we're walking, she'll lead.
If she's waiting, we'll leave.
I'm so gracious I got you here.
If you touch it, it's cold.
If you drop it, it breaks.
If you hug it, it shakes.
Hold and it shakes.
Cuz "Boom!" she said. Boom... she's dead.
When it's home..
and I'm broken, let's fix.
When it's home..
and I'm swollen, let's kiss.
When it's home..
and we're walking, she'll lead.
If she's waiting, we'll leave.
I'm so gracious, my name's "I Dare". (x3)
When it's home..
and I'm broken, let's fix.
When it's home..
and I'm swollen, let's kiss.
When it's home..
and we're walking, she'll lead.
If she's waiting, we'll leave.
I'm so gracious.
(screams)
Have we fucked all the while?
Let me be alone.
And all the while...
(x2)
Said all the while...
(x5)
09 Piano (04:58)
Three times alone this week I was suppose to be a rock star. I only beat you when I'm drunk, You're only pretty when you're crying. We are suppose to be the ones to set the air afire. Three times alone this week I was made into a liar. Whether (or not) I found the gold I never told. Richer: I brilliant white. I. I wear shoes that move men from desert to riches. Give me what you got girl and scratch it because it itches. Call me Chameleon and set this air afire. Three times alone this week I was suppose to be a liar. Whether (or not) I found the gold I never told. Richer: I brilliant white. I. Maybe not. Why the stare? Would I lie about that which I am scared? What did I say to you? Step into a pot of gold, rejoice in fire that which soon burns cold. What did I say to you? I can't deny it the love, the throat, sincerity I can't deny it I've got to keep my P.M.A. Cause I, in order to fly I tell you that I (scream) don't you realize that i silence it? it's that fucking hard
10 Babe (01:41)
I exude light and wash my hands of you.
By larger beings devoured, leaving only me to improve.
Weep.
Don't fucking weep.
You weak eyes cry tears of the meek.
Weep.
Catch up with the sheep.
It's a sacrilegious ceremony.
New flavor of the week.
Nothing's sacred in the faces of the soulless (that you're made into).
You're raptured by a guilty stifle down.
"...And what I'll do is mess you up and lie to you."
Look at you, you know it's true.
It's a field trip to Hollywood Babylon But I'm Not Coming.
No.
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