Silverstein ‘Misery Made Me’
Canadians Silverstein explode out of the gates with the autobiographical Misery Made Me, their tenth album and follow up to 2020’s A Beautiful Place To Drown, when the opening number Our Song turns the ignition on the bands brand of emo-punk and explodes at the sound of the starters gun.
Displaying the bands trademark angst vocals and quick tempo guitars, Our Song is the perfect way to hook you into the bands story. It’s a story of the vocalist Shane Told’s take on the ‘boulders moved and mountains climbed’ during the bands career only to ‘be confronted with the misery of staying in the same place’.
It makes for an album lyrically that we can all relate to – isolation and anxiety are common themes – yet in true nature of the band, it’s layered in positivity of accepting the new realm we are now in.
This shows is the fantastic hook laden Ultraviolet, a stomping infectious track of scattered guitars and marching drums and Bankrupt with a heavy distorted bass line, galloping drums and a breakdown to rattle the Richter scale.
There is the saying misery loves company, and this album features plenty of guests who all drive this art to new levels.
Comeback Kid’s Andrew Neufeld lends his vocal to Die Alone, a rocket fuelled riff and pained vocals building towards the dynamic drop of a sledgehammer musically crashing down. Cold Blood has Trevor Daniel lend his talents to the slower emo-punk number while The Devil Wears Prada Mike Hranica is on the brilliant Slow Motion, which has distinct nu-metal undertones supporting its slow groove and huge and anthemic chorus.
The band change things up, literally, within songs too such as The Altar/Mary which starts rapid and aggressive with time changes coming from all angles before shifting gears into an ambient electronic piece. Meanwhile Live Like This is built around a dance rhythm that builds with a crescendo of guitars and vocals before dropping straight into the haunting and beautiful acoustic Misery which is dramatic and sweeping.
To be knocking quality out like this on their tenth offering is truly astounding. It’s energetic, relatable, unpredictable and catchy. Misery may of helped make this album however you’ll get a lot of happiness out of listening to it.
Album Review By Iain McCallum
