They were back from hiatus. They were back pursuing other projects. There was talk of new recordings and rumors of a tour. The rhythm section went back on the road with Saves the Day. A one off show, a select city tour, one or two new compositions would grace their set list, a mention of all the work on new material followed by months of nothing, deadlines come and gone, and a website that was cryptic to say the least… Over the past few years I do not think I was the only one Glassjaw had beginning to feel like a GnR fan circa the late Nineties. Finally, the past few months have been fruitful. The wait has been ended and unlike Guns n’ Roses fans, I am not disappointed. Blanketed by thick bass and an aggressive guitar, Coloring Book has arrived.
“Black Nurse” opens the record with the punch and freshness of a 2002 New Brunswick, New Jersey basement showcase. Its chunky guitar and heavy bass lines almost make you feel closed in, trapped between a weak jaded hipster nodding their head in approval (burning the back of your shoulder with a dangling cigarette) and the most excitingly charged pit you’ve ever caught a stray fist to the chest from. This is a ‘move or get moved’ song right out of the gate, leaving you already let down about there being only five tracks left.
“Vanilla Poltergeist Snake” intros with plenty of high end energy, keeping pace with the opening duo…only to change gears shortly after. Slowly taking the shape of an unstoppable steam engine; the driving bass and high-hat / snare paired throughout, joined by a slow-pulsing and heavily distorted guitar, compliment the curious verses and declarative chorus laid by the vocals.
The chugging push is continued from “Vanilla Poltergeist Snake," gaining mass and momentum most of the way through “Miracles In Inches." The vocals convey desperation with time feeling as though it’s running low. The arrival of the break, however, brings with it a deteriorating characteristic as this composition cuts everything, save a lone bass line. Guitar and drums quickly jump back in with a chaotic spray…almost wilting the punch Coloring Book opened with in an incendiary bloom.
“Stations of the New Cross” reflects this decay in its rolled back tempo; cementing the tidal flow of this record, seemingly impossibly, in only five songs.
This ebb and flow finds us here, on the other side of this short but sweet collection, at “Daytona White." A song possessing a seductive weight, albums away from where Coloring Book delivered “Black Nurse," “Daytona White” unfolds the inevitable: No one ever plans on the night ending, but suddenly the east begins slowly glowing louder. A careless population will never remember closing its eyes upon waking in 6 hours; yet the bodies pose frozen across your apartment. The olive jar is empty, the wine bottles bled dry, and the mirrors lay cleaner than you’d like. Reluctantly, you move in echoes trying to recall where you keep your bedroom. You push its door open wondering if someone got to your sheets first.
END
All in all, Coloring Book is exactly as advertised. The songs fall across the spectrum. In this case Glassjaw makes each song work to feed the next, a concept that escapes most. At no time did I feel a knee jerk from one track to the next; or even so much as the high speed climb and fall of a rollercoaster. Coloring Book picks you up and drops you in on a wave double overhead, carries you through the pipe, only to eases you down back near the beach. All you want to do is paddle back out for another go.
No comments:
Post a Comment