Angry, Depressing - Great (Freak Show - Silverchair)

Member Name: weezer170

Product:	Freak Show - Silverchair
Date:	29/07/02 (1031 review reads)
Rating:

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I own all silverchiar's albums, most of their singles, an interview disk and a couple of their live CDs so as you can tell, i'm a pretty BIG fan!!
'Freakshow' is a great cd, but very different to 'frogstomp'. (as 'neon ballroom' is different to 'freakshow', and 'diorama' is different to 'neon ballroom').

'Freakshow' is a very angry album and has great songs. With depressing lyrics such as, 'in my self-pity i keep falling down' (SLAVE), and 'couldn't care less if i died right now' (NO ASSOCIATION) it is obvious that johns is in a very dark state of mind, and as a result, manages to create power and emotion through the lyrics. Although there are a lot of heavy songs with punching bass lines, Daniel Johns still manages to keep the melody going. There is more variety of songs on 'freakshow' than on 'frogstomp', ranging from hard, heavy songs to mellow accoustic tracks, which keeps the listener very interested.

To get a better idea of 'freakshow', i have done a quick rundown of each of the 13 tracks:

1)SLAVE. Great way to begin the album with a strong, heavy riff. Heavy song with a hard bass line. This was the first song written after their debut album 'frogstomp'.

2)FREAK. Catchy riff and quite a hard song. An obvious choice for a first single.

3)ABUSE ME. A more mellow side of silverchair emerging with agressive lyrics. "Most of the songs on the album are about being percieved as being different just because you tour around the country and stuff. People just throw negative comments at you all the time and don't know what you're like, and that's what ABUSE ME is kind of like because the lyrics are saying, forget about 'em, throw 'em away". (Quote, Johns)

4)LIE TO ME. The shortest song on the cd. A fast heavy-ish track with another catchy riff.

5)NO ASSOCIATION
. One of my fave tracks. Johns puts his all his anger into this song with powerful lyrics. One of the heavier songs on the cd.

6)CEMETERY. This is mellow with an acoustic guitar, violins and soft drumming. CEMETERY gives the album a lot more depth, although the band weren't too sure about putting the song on the album, but are now glad they did. And so am i!

7)THE DOOR. Good song, although probably my least favourite on the album. Features a riff so catchy that i feel it gets too repetitive after a while! The band claim it's influenced by Led Zepplin, but i wouldn't know coz i've never really heard Zepplin's music. Overall, i still like the song.

8)POP SONG FOR US REJECTS. A nice bit of acoustic strumming at the beginning of the song with the electric guitar coming in for the chorus. A song about drug addiction "or any kind of habit holding you back from doing what you want to do" (Quote, Johns)

9)LEARN TO HATE. Heavy track about (you guessed it!), well...hate. "It's just about hate and stuff, and how people hate other people for silly reasons" (Quote, Johns)

10)PETROL AND CHLORINE. My fave track on the album. It's just so different from the rest of the cd. You've still got those depressing lyrics, but as well as being mellow, the song also features the sitar (indian instrument), violin and the timpani drums resulting in a very eastern kind of sound.

11)ROSES. Strong drum intro. Mildly heavy. Um, can't think of anything else to say really! Yeah, i like it!

12)NOBODY CAME. This is a powerful song that keeps going from somber and mellow, to heavy with the guitar, bass and drums just crashing together. Strong lyrics about child abuse.

13)THE CLOSING. A good, heavy-ish track to finish the album off with. It's not just guitarist/vocalist Daniel Johns with the songwriting talent, as Ben Gillies (drums) actually wrote all the music for this o
ne.

Well, thanks for reading my review. Overall, this is a fantastic cd to own, with such depth in the lyrics and a broader variety in music than many other bands (such as Bush or Nirvana, who silverchair don't sound anything like!) Don't get me wrong, i LOVE Nirvana but it just gets so old to constsntly read reviews in magazines etc about silverchair being a 'Nirvana rip-off band' bla bla bla. Well that's my opinion anyway but i guess you guys will have to just decide for yourselves!

Thanks again, and just buy the album!

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