Silverchair Discography Review

Silverchair

Frogstomp (1994)

Genre: Grunge, Alternative Metal

This band by far is my favorite Australian band ever, and this country has it fair share of great bands. Now when these guys came out most people wrote them off for jumping on the Grunge band wagon, treating them as posers, but if you hear these guys even though you can hear influences from Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice In Chains, they also have a strong influence from old school Black Sabbath, being able to write super heavy head banging riffs, these dudes are the real deal. Now Daniel Johns the vocalist is a impressive Singer but he has a long way to go on a lyrical level, Suicidal Dream is just too much and it's no well written for example, but on the other hand he just kills it on Tomorrow which is  a mega rock anthem, you can see he has potential. The band in general is super solid, but also has room to grow, so we have a pretty good first  album, but the best is yet to come.

Overall: 48

Freakshow (1997)

Genre: Alternative Metal, Post Grunge

The band starts searching for the own sound  diving more into heavy metal, exploring melodic post grunge and you also get little a taste of their more experimental side too. There is more money for production so the heavy stuff sounds heavier and  you the addition extra instruments on a couple of songs. This album in  general is an improvement from their last and basically leaves the listener wanting more. 

Overall:  55

Neon Ballroom (1999)

Genre: Alternative Metal, Post Grunge, Alternative Rock

This is the first Silverchair album where you can really hear a colossal progression in the writing and playing, slowly becoming more sophisticated. The  piano and string sections become an important part of the band's sound, there some beautiful piano arrangements like on Emotion sickness that really impresses, and you can tell  that these guys were the precursors  for dudes like Muse. The band never get lost in all the additional production and musicians, they actually flourish, but the best is yet to come from these guys.

Overall: 56.5

Silverchair

Diorama (2002)

Genre: Alternative Rock, Alternative Pop, Neo Progressive, Alternative Metal

This album is probably Silverchair’s best production, if you never have listened to it, go out and get it somehow; it’s a real breath of fresh air, in the Alternative Rock/Metal world. They have shredded their somber moods for a reinvigorated new positive style.  

Vocals and Lyrics: Daniel really pushes himself vocally, and lyrically moving away from “I hate myself songs”, and has a couple of colossal choruses up his sleeve. 10

Instrumentation:

Guitar: Daniel wrote most of this album on piano, so when you translate this to guitar it leads to some complex chord progressions; it’s really interesting how sophisticated some of the songs are.

Bass/Drums: Both of these guys are at service to the needs of the song, but both land some cool arrangements here and there.

Keys, String and Horns: There is some ambitious stuff here in this department it takes the album to a whole other level, Van Dyke Parks who has worked with the likes of Beach Boys, U2 and Ringo Star, does an impeccable job with the band.  8

Melody and/or Structure: The band has really matured in their composition abilities. 10

Sound, Production and Feeling: The sound for this project is just perfect, lots of attention to detail. 10

Songs: Some of the best in their catalogue. 11

The Bad: It lags briefly near the end.

Originality: We find a band the redefines their sound completely, and passes the test with flying colors.   10

Overall: 59

Silverchair

Young Modern (2007)

Genre: Alternative Rock, Alternative Pop, Neo Progressive

Man this album took me a long time to warm up to it, I was pist that the band had abandon their old school Sabbath type riffs altogether (they were really good), Daniel Johns (Vocalist/Guitar/Keys), had lost it in his ambition to break the mold of a power trio. But after a work trip to Paso de los Libres, I sat down to listen to this album, and I was blown away. I listened to it in a different mindset (not thinking about their previous stuff) and I discovered an intelligent and super sophisticated album.      

Vocals and Lyrics:  Daniels keep pushing himself vocally, trying to find a new voice sounding like a young Peter Gabriel at moments. This guy pretty much never repeats himself  so there’s always new and interesting stuff in his department on each album.  9

Instrumentation: The Band is at serves to the songs, everything they do is for the sake of the songs, and this reflects the maturity of the band. Instrumentally theirs is some freaking interesting stuff going on in the background.7.5

Melody and/or Structure: Look it’s not as mind blowing in instrumental arrangements as Diorama is but, "Those Thieving Birds…” track is there first epic song in their catalogue and they nailed it, in their first try.     10

Sound, Production and Feeling: It’s a freaking weird album its happy and up-tempo, but without sounding like a stupid pop album, or not going into a adult contemporary sound like Incubus did in “If not when?” killing all the energy. It’s mixed like a rock album, so even though no more distorted guitars it has tons of energy.  10

Songs: It’s the first Silverchair album with no fillers!!!!!!, a problem that plagued the band in every other album 13

Originality: To bad up to the date this is their last album, it would have been interesting to see these guys evolve their new style and tour with Muse 10

Overall: 59.5