Introduction: this is my first "musical" review, so let's say I'm "experimenting" with various ways to create one. This time, I've decided to use the "Track to Track" method—let's see what comes out of it. I also want to add that I'm not one of those reviewers who say "In this piece, you hear a dubstep rhythm mixed with strictly post synth punk sounds tending toward basic growl with maladapted guitar in harmonic polyionic scale" or things like that (a bit of irony!), I just love listening to music: I'm not a "technician" of it, and if you notice (very likely) historical inaccuracies, please write them in the comments!
(Before starting, a bit of history about the band and company)
Jawbreaker was founded in 1987 in New York, a few years before the release of albums like "Spiderland" by Slint (1989) [Post-Rock] and "Diary" by Sunny Day Real Estate (1992) [Emo]. What do the Jawbreaker have in common with these two albums? The "Jaw" are also credited with revitalizing the music scene by taking sounds very close to Punk but changing the typical themes of the genre ("Like killing cops and reading Kerouac" as the lyrics of their song "Boxcar" say), reaching the point of speaking about feelings or otherwise very introspective themes; the genre is commonly known as "First wave Emo" I prefer to call it "Punk Emo", but the merits of Jawbreaker don't stop there: after the SDRE in 1993 (with precisely the album "Diary") further renewed the genre, creating what's known as "Second wave Emo" (which I just prefer to call "Emo") distancing itself from Punk sounds and creating more personal and harmonious sounds, Jawbreaker thought to "refine" them further with the album "Dear You" of 1995, an album that brings the Emo genre to its completeness both at the level of lyrics and music. But back to 1993, the year in which alongside the SDRE Jawbreaker releases the album I'll review today: "24 Hour Revenge Therapy" in my opinion, the absolute refinement of "Punk Emo" and together with "Dear You" the band's best album.
Let's go!
The album opens in a very energetic way with "The Boat Dreams From The Hill/Indictment" a song that simultaneously feels both cheerful and melancholy, introducing us right away to the typical sounds of Jawbreaker's first three albums: Punk sounds, joy, but with a point of negativity between the lines; this song also tackles one of the recurring themes in Jawbreaker's songs: the underground band ("I just wrote the dumbest song. It's gonna be a sing along. All our friends will clap and sing. Our enemies will laugh and be pointing.")
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Boat Dreams From the Hill (02:39)
Boat on a hill, never going to sea.
Anchored to a fixer upper's dream.
This boat is beat, never going to be a boat now.
Thirsty, sees the sea from high on ice plant.
He keeps patching it and painting.
Thinking about his pension plan.
But the boat is out to pasture.
Seems it never had a chance.
I wanna be a boat. I wanna learn to swim
Then I'll learn to float. Then begin again.
Boat remembers the carpenter's sure hand.
Missing fishy flutter on it's rudder.
Sold at an auction, on a dolly ever since.
Sometimes rainy days bring boyish wonder.
02 Indictment (02:49)
I just wrote the dumbest song.
It's gonna be a sing along.
All our friends will clap and sing.
Our enemies will laugh and be pointing.
It won't bother me, what the thoughtless are thinking.
I am more concerned with what we're drinking.
They'll laugh about it at the warehouse,
saying I'm so lame. It wrote itself,
you can keep the blame.
It'll be a happy song, not unlike some other ones.
While everyone's depressed and broke,
I get high off your sick jokes.
They're colossal.
They're tousling all the worried hair. Stay up there.
So crazy it just might work.
Then we'll quit our jobs.
We could be the next group that you rob.
There are times for being dumb.
This must be one of them.
I'd like to know what's so wrong,
with a stupid happy song?
It says many things in its nothingness.
It gives me space to think, I guess.
To think less. And less.
Moving units and tracking charts.
Will they ever learn?
It isn't who you know, it's who you burn.
It means nothing. Selling kids to other kids.
If you think we changed our tune, I hope we did.
03 Boxcar (01:54)
You're not punk, and I'm telling everyone.
Save your breath, I never was one.
You don't know what I'm all about.
Like killing cops and reading Kerouac.
My enemies are all too familiar.
They're the ones who used to call me friend.
I'm coloring outside your guidelines.
I was passing out when you were passing our your rules.
One. Two. Three. Four. Who's punk what's the score?
Got a friend. Her name is Boxcar.
Cigarettes and beer in El Sob.
Her hair was blue, now it's green.
I like her mind. She hates the scene.
My enemies are all too familiar.
They're the ones who used to call me friend.
I'm coloring outside your guidelines.
I was passing out when you were passing our your rules.
One. Two. Three. Four. Who's punk what's the score?
You're on your own. You're all alone.
You're on your own. You're all alone.
You're on your own. You're all alone.
You're on your own. You're all alone.
04 Outpatient (03:41)
A little voice that's not quite your own.
Count backwards from ten.
Yellow jelly shot hard in vein.
I want to talk to you again.
"This is Jennings, your anesthetist."
"We think we'll go in through the mouth."
Watch the lights go from head to toe.
Doped up and coasting down the hall.
Now I'm talking through my pen.
Do you read me? Am I bleeding?
Am I bleeding again?
Suddenly hear so clearly again.
Wake up screaming so far from home.
Incontinent off continent.
The tears are warm. The body's numb.
Get your coat, your ride is here.
05 Ashtray Monument (03:04)
Free, alone.
The predawn white light's coming on.
Bottle on the night stand.
I count disasters on my free hand now.
Run for cover, there's a big one coming.
You'll be lucky if you're at ground zero.
No one said that this life was easy.
Did that no one ever live a life this hard?
It gets hard.
The bills are scattered in the yard.
Ashtray monument.
A life spent waiting in cement comes down.
Run for cover, there's a big one coming.
You'll be lucky if it's got your number.
No one said that this life was easy.
Did that no one ever live a life this hard?
After all, it's not that bad.
I still have pictures.
I look back at all the things that we once did.
You said, "I love you."
I guess you did.
Remember our life.
I did the dishes while you read out loud.
Best friends, strangers now.
Were our kids all we could call common ground?
After all, it's not that bad.
I still have pictures.
I look back at all the things that we once did.
You said, "I love you."
I guess you did.
06 Condition Oakland (05:17)
I rode down to the tracks.
Thinking they might sing to me.
But they just stared back.
Broken, trainless and black as night.
Climbed out onto my roof.
So I'd be a poet in the night.
Beat the walls off my room.
I saw the big room that is this life.
This is my condition:
Naked and hysterical,
Reaching to grab a hand
that I just slapped back at.
This is my condition:
Desperate, alone,
Without an excuse.
I try to explain. Christ, what's the use?
Read and I felt so small.
Some words keep speaking
When you close the book.
Drank and just about smiled.
Then I remembered us in that bed.
Put my ear to the door.
I just heard hot rods
and gunshots and sirens.
People kill me these days.
There's keys in their eyes
But they lock from the inside.
07 Ache (04:14)
I believe in desperate acts.
The kind that make me look stupid. (Look like a fool)
Just keep reinventing myself.
It's move or die. (I change my form)
These days the people I love
are spread so far apart. (All out of reach)
It's a thin sheet
Across the face. (Cover me now)
That's pretty old.
I never felt like this before.
I say that every hour.
It's never going to be like it could have been.
Now it's just this room. (Window looks back)
You're a big part of it.
But I don't care. (You take the lead)
And can you really see me now
Like I made me? (Made me anew)
Just like anyone at all.
Safer alone.
So right, so wrong.
Another winter's coming on.
You win, you lose.
It's the same old news. (These things go wrong so often)
Pick up the phone
and punch your code.
Somewhere, sometime let me make you mine.
Lean your head on mine
Like you used to. (Used to your lean)
I don't mind if you're faking it. (Make it seem real)
I'm not asking the questions.
I'm not demanding the answers now. (Take what you give)
Right or wrong, just take me,
lead me on.
I'm going.
08 Do You Still Hate Me? (02:52)
Been hearing about you.
All about your disapproval.
Still I remember.
The way I used to move you.
I wrote you a letter.
I heard it just upset you.
Why don't you tell me?
How can I do this better?
(Chorus)
Are you out there?
Do you hear me?
Can I call you?
Do you still hate me?
Are we talking?
Are we fighting?
Is it over?
Are we writing?
We're getting older.
But we're acting younger.
We should be smarter.
It seems we're getting dumber.
I have a picture
of you and me in Brooklyn.
On a porch, it was raining.
Hey, I remember that day.
(Chorus)
And I miss you. (3x)
(Chorus)
And I miss you. (3x)
09 West Bay Invitational (03:58)
All of the neighbors decided;
It's time to have all our strangers
over and make friends.
Chris got a pony keg of loose charm.
I had an accident. I hurt my arm.
People from bands and labels.
The good ones.
Plenty of stunning children. East Bay.
You were from Oakland by way of the Midwest.
I bought a rose and a suit
with the pants pegged.
You said, "I smelled you twice today."
Someone was passing out somewhere.
We kissed a shot of Kentucky straight.
I swore this life is worth the wait.
Hayes broke the scissors, apologized.
Our kitchen was crowded and steamy.
Isn't it always?
I just looked deeper into you.
You bit my neck blue.
We hung our clothes up on the floor
And put our faith in a closed door.
We're having this party. Please come.
It won't be the same without you. Please come.
10 Jinx Removing (03:13)
Talked out and now I'm feeling crowded.
All the errands in the world won't save us now.
Rained in and I won't come unclouded.
There's a stillness in the air.
I pray for sound.
We're too smart to watch TV.
We're too dumb to make believe
this is all we want from life.
And I'm too dumb to talk to you.
You're so quick to listen to me.
I'm saying nothing you don't know.
Nothing you don't know.
Walked out and I won't be rerouted.
If I don't go outside today, I never will.
Too old not to get excited
about rain and roads,
Egyptian ruins, our first kiss.
I love you more than I ever loved
Anyone before, or anyone to come.
Someone said your name, I thought of you alone.
I was just the same, twenty blocks away.
Blew twelve and kissed the thirteenth finger.
"Rabbit, rabbit," on the first.
I hold my breath.
Did tricks I hoped you wouldn't notice.
A superstitious hyperrealist.
I'll make you mine.
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