Silverchair
Frogstomp

THE REVIEW

Sycophants, brazen robbers, wave-riding surfers of stolen currents, yet still likable, these Australians at their debut, dated 1995.

At the time, the guys were roughly fifteen years old, and writing an album like "Frogstomp" at that age positioned them as a new promise in the post-grunge scene.

Thanks to their stroke of luck from winning a competition ("Pick me"), and with the major hit single "Tomorrow"—a sort of semi-ballad with distorted and screamed inserts in the chorus, played relentlessly by American radio stations—Silverchair entered the studio with the giant Sony/Epic, and in just nine days, delivered what would become their most successful album (a whopping 8 platinum albums).

The opener "Israel's Son", with its dirty and distorted sound and properly filtered vocals, immediately gives us an idea of the direction Silverchair wants to take, a sort of raw hard rock with all too evident nods to the greats of the Seattle scene: Nirvana first and foremost, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, with a splash of Pilots as well. The final acceleration with Cobain-esque epilogue is commendable. The album flows between metal echoes alternating with delicate arpeggios ("Faultline", "Pure Massacre"), ballads with aggressive endings ("Shade", "Suicidal Dream"), booming and chaotic riffs balancing between Soundgarden and Nirvana, always keeping the greats Alice in Chains in mind ("Leave Me Out", "Undecided"), punkish outbursts (the instrumental "Madman" and the closing track "Findaway").

This album essentially deserves credit, given its enormous commercial success, for representing a watershed and a guideline for all the post-grunge bands that followed, and when you consider that the authors were still teenagers, the final result is truly surprising.

Recommended.