Review Summary: A bittersweet goodbye to the Glassjaw of old, Our Color Green serves as the perfect beginning for a new musical chapter.
You have to wonder what it is about being a Glassjaw fan that enables us to endure consistently being teased with prospects for a new album only for them to be non-chalantly cast away. Since 2002’s
Worship and Tribute, we've been left in the dark due to miscommunication with the band, Daryl Palumbo’s frequent bouts with Chron’s disease, and just about every other excuse under the sun. But alas, with the release of
Our Color Green, it all came flooding back and I realized exactly why I’ve been a Glassjaw fan for this long. Because the music they put out is just that damn good.
The first order of business is to discuss the musicianship on the album. As a whole, it’s nothing short of fantastic. Justin Beck proudly displays his penchant for writing powerful guitar riffs that are always played with a sense of urgency, never giving you a chance to become bored. But it is alongside the rhythm duo consisting of Manuel Carrero and Durijah Lang where he really shines. The three band mates are always on the same wavelength, constantly building off one another with a keen sense of dynamics within a song. This ability to successfully work in tandem with each other is what makes each song a unique experience, familiar in structure yet magnificently varied in execution. One needs not look further than the EP opener “All Good Junkies Go to Heaven” to see what I mean.
But one cannot talk about Glassjaw as a collective unit without mentioning Daryl Palumbo. His fantastic vocal range and ever growing bag of tricks always ensures that he rises above and beyond the expectations. Whether it is the inhuman screams featured in “Jesus Glue” or the irresistibly emotional chorus found in “Natural Born Farmer”, Daryl never ceases to amaze; solidifying his place amongst the top Post-Hardcore vocalists to date. To be quite honest, even without the fantastic instruments to back him up, Palumbo would still make this EP a treat to listen to.
All of the qualities above come together to create an experience that you can’t quite find with many other bands, especially in a genre that has become as derivative as Post-Hardcore. This uncompromising aspiration for excellence and coherency comes full circle with “You Think You’re (John Fucking Lennon)” , displaying everyone’s musical chops at their finest to culminate a song that is the epitome of what makes them unique. Whether it be the calm percussion intro that paves the way for the rest of the band to explode onto the track or the way that Daryl desperately belts out the lyrics in the chorus, this song has it all.
However, there is a rather large issue that some people may become upset over. All of these songs have already been heard at one point or another due to them already being singles that were released prior to this EP. Also, with only 5 tracks clocking in at a total of 21 minutes, it’s hard not to feel a little slighted after an 8 year wait for new material. All of this amounts to me being unable to give this full marks without feeling biased.
At its core
Our Color Green functions as nothing more than a fond scrap book featuring the Glassjaw of old giving one last hurrah before embracing new ground on their subsequent EP
Coloring Book. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because at the end of the day this is still the Glassjaw that we grew up with. And it’s damn good to boot.
Essential Tracks:
More or less all of them, the quality of the tracks on this is consistently high.
