Jawbreaker
Bivouac

THE REVIEW

"She leaned down and kissed my cheek. I was scared but it felt sweet.

Drank a beer, felt the chill of fall."

It's been two years since I published the review of 24 Hour Revenge Therapy but still no one else has decided to "resurrect" one of the four amazing albums released by Jawbreaker between 1990 and 1995. Each of the four records is notable for one reason or another; Jawbreaker is one of those emocore bands that, in my opinion, have best succeeded in combining punk sounds with deeply personal themes. The singer/guitarist/lyricist Blake Schwarzenbach manages to stir deeply with his lyrics of dark metropolitan poetry, often grappling with the depression he cites multiple times in his songs. It's amusing how the band's drummer, Adam Pfahler, in a recent interview, stated that Jawbreaker is more followed and famous now than when they were together; the cult of this band has grown over time and has come to touch the eardrums of people like me, who weren't even born at the time.

This Bivouac is probably the band's darkest and hardest-toned album, keeping in mind that each of their works has an increasingly visceral catharsis as the minutes pass: in any case, there's no escaping the tears and reflecting on who we are.

We move from tracks with an exasperated pace like "Shield your eyes" to more subdued moments like "Sleep," passing through the beautiful "Chesterfield King," a love song/story narrated with great originality; forget the usual cliché dedication to the beloved and prepare for a truly peculiar and distinctive story. The most ironic track on the album is undoubtedly "Tour Song," a song that speaks from the band's perspective about a concert where everything goes wrong, from the guitar strings that break every two minutes to the audience that does nothing but shout insults without even knowing the name of the group. The album concludes with the title track "Bivouac," a ten-minute piece, desperate, almost cacophonous, a perfect final piece for this album, which is a real dark journey into the world of these three young American guys. I'm deeply undecided between four or five stars, but considering that the same year they released the magnificent single "Kiss the bottle," I don't care and give it a good 5. Amen.