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Rating: "She leaned down and kissed my cheek. I was scared but it felt sweet.
She asked me if I had a name,I told her I was glued up on some chick.
We sat and smoked against the wall,
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.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Shield Your Eyes (03:12)
There was a sun once.
It lit the whole damn sky.
It kept everything alive.
And there was a man once.
He looked it straight in the eye.
He saw everything.
He went blind.
The truth burns bright.
There's too much there sometimes.
The sun it shows, the sun it blinds.
Best to keep your eyes.
Stare at the sidewalk lines.
Let lies lie don't let them shine.
The blind man staggers.
And he grabs at his eyes.
He can't do anything.
Everything is a lie.
Now he sits around.
And he stares at the walls.
He can't do anything at all.
The truth burns bright.
There's too much there sometimes.
The sun it shows, the sun it blinds.
Best to keep your eyes.
Stare at the sidewalk lines.
Let lies lie don't let them shine.
Shield your eyes from all this misery.
02 Big (05:08)
In this ocean I'm a bag of tea.
I make some clouds but they're minor league.
Hack at the base of the largest tree.
Only to find that it doesn't bleed.
This is big.
The laughing right stands before me naked, unashamed.
It's for your own good.
It's going to hurt us more than it hurts you.
Don't it make you feel small?
You and yours on us and ours.
You've got the guns and we've got the scars.
Turn the gun back on yourself.
I love it when you think big.
03 Chesterfield King (03:57)
We stood in your room and laughed out loud.
Suddenly the laughter died
and we were caught in an eye to eye.
We sat on the floor and did we sit close.
I could smell your thoughts and thought.
Do you want to touch a lot like me?
Too scared to say a thing.
I left your house and kicked myself.
I put those feelings on a shelf to die.
I guess I'm not a gambling type
but think of what the two of us had lost.
I needed some time to think it out.
7-Eleven parking lot.
A toothless woman turned and stopped.
I gave her a dime and a Chesterfield.
She leaned down and kissed my cheek.
I was scared but it felt sweet.
Felt so sweet.
She asked me if I had a name.
I told her I was glued up on some chick.
We sat and smoked against the wall.
Drank a beer, felt the chill of fall.
I took my car and drove it down the hill by your house.
I drove so fast.
The wind it couldn't cool me down,
so I turned it around and came back up.
You were waiting on your step,
steam showing off your breath and
water in your eyes.
We pulled each other into one,
parkas clinging on the lawn and kissed right there.
Said all my chicks they smoke these things and handed you a
Chesterfield King.
Held your hand and watched TV
and traced the little lines along your palm.
05 Donatello (03:05)
Donatello
When I come to life I'll suck the air so deep.
That will be my first breath.
I'm gonna cut my strings and kill the puppeteer.
Then I'll walk on out of here.
I'll make sure nothing happens here.
Follow all those fingers pulling me.
I've felt your hands shaping me all wrong ways.
Stone it warms to flesh now.
They'll come from far and wide to see an empty pedestal.
I'm long gone.
When it all comes down, I can show you something you will not believe.
When it all comes down, we're gonna see a real masterpiece.
With an artist's eye and a killer's touch.
Takes a life to make one.
You had to get a grip, but I was caught inside of it.
Sure you made an impression.
Depression.
07 p.s. New York Is Burning (05:10)
I leave it burning and count the dead.
A jilted lover, a one time friend.
It reeks of incest.
It reeks of pain.
Erase my anguish.
Forget your name.
Can't see the future.
I just break free and run.
And knowing nothing I know that it's just begun.
This day feels different.
Feels like shedding skin.
My mind is clearer now I know what state I'm in.
And from a distance it seems so unreal.
Nothing left.
Nothing to feel.
And if it hurt you, it hurt me too.
I had to kill it to heal the wound.
08 Like a Secret (04:13)
Did you ever wish you could be king?
Holding heaven in your hands
and hoping it will all come true.
Turn the world on its ear make it ring.
Rub sticks in dirt and dust
and let the bright come burning through.
Don't talk me down from here.
Let me fly this kite without a string.
Goes much higher than these buildings.
It is faster than your tv.
Larger than your life, like silver.
Talk lines unbroken by old fears.
Necklaces of perfect words to hang around your perfect neck.
Turn a diamond to a lump of coal.
Making fires amd melting ice.
Locomotion frees the soul.
Don't talk me down from here.
Let me fly this kite without a string.
Goes much higher than these buildings.
It is faster than your tv.
Larger than your life, like silver.
Colder than deep water.
It is better than a switchblade.
Hides mountains in its shadow like a secret.
I make my bed alone.
See the would-be king on a would-be throne.
I'm all I know now.
Better get started.
It's a long walk home.
11 Pack It Up (02:53)
(You guys are the pits of the world)
And I'm asking what is left to do?
And I'm feeling it's been done before.
Referential, hey that's the guy from all those movies.
Referential, hey that's the riff from that old song.
Don't play Busy, Imaginary, Incomplete and Seethruskin, Drone and Gutless,
Wound and Mean Guy.
Equalized is overrated.
Sorry.
(Overrated. I think so. But then again...Who does? Bye.)
12 Parabola (03:08)
I caught my eye in a swinging door.
I'd never seen that man before.
I saw myself in someone else and hated them ever since.
Some broken glass and a bleeding hand.
The mirror's down but I'm still standing.
Stand.
I know who I am.
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