Neon Ballroom

What do Amazon.com customers think?

Silverchair Continue Progression on NEON BALLROOM...4.5 stars...

Back in 1995 when FROGSTOMP came out, Silverchair's three members were only 15 years old, but needless to say many were impressed with their skills at such an age. Their debut was a fierce blend of aggression and angst packaged neatly in nuggets of throttling guitar rock. FREAK SHOW still had its fair share of metallic grunge but also balanced it off with some varied textures. NEON BALLROOM continues their experiments with melody while sprinkling in some orchestration, keyboards, and lush arrang…

Back in 1995 when FROGSTOMP came out, Silverchair's three members were only 15 years old, but needless to say many were impressed with their skills at such an age. Their debut was a fierce blend of aggression and angst packaged neatly in nuggets of throttling guitar rock. FREAK SHOW still had its fair share of metallic grunge but also balanced it off with some varied textures. NEON BALLROOM continues their experiments with melody while sprinkling in some orchestration, keyboards, and lush arrangements to add depth to their sonic assault. While NEON BALLROOM does have its share of Kurt Cobain-esque moments, more often than not its a very impressive trip through all 12 tracks.

Take for instance the lush opening track "Emotion Sickness", which features piano great David Helfgott on keyboards. Here vocalist/guitarist Daniel Johns, bassist Chris Joannou, and drummer Ben Gillies showcase a completely sparse yet lavish six minutes of glossy but dramatic rock. It doesn't hurt that the song sounds like it could be many different suites, but there are moments during the song where Silverchair sound much older than their years. First single "Anthem For The Year 2000" is an arena-sized nugget of stadium metal that makes you want to stomp your feet more than not. It's the gentler moments that really surprise you, from the gentle, sweeping grandeur of "Miss You Love" to the silvery power ballad that is "Ana's Song (Open Fire)", which tells the tale of Daniel Johns battle with anorexia. But Silverchair still love to show that they can rock, such as the fierce and angry guitars that dominate the grindcore of "Spawn Again", which is a fiery slice of animal defense. "Satin Sheets" has punk attitude written all over it with the thrashing guitars and pounding drums. Again, so many texures to be found on BALLROOM. Other tracks like "Point of View" and "Black Tangled Heart" mix together the majestic and the monster.

Overall, Silverchair really display a sense of craft and majesty on NEON BALLROOM. Whether you like this side of Silverchair or not depends on your dedication to the changes a young band will go through. BALLROOM displays some real strength and progress, one that would come to full realization on DIORAMA.

P.S. Look for Silverchair's new album YOUNG MODERN due out April.

Read the full review

Written by M. Jarrett "SoundgardenFanForLife"

Ambiguous...is the word

silverchair (note, it's not supposed to a capitalized s did you know that!?) is probably one of the bands where a whole mass will claim to hate them, either labelling them as Nirvanabes or just grunge-rock crap. It's too easy to label them as that and just diss them. It's more rational to look at an album musically and its expression, rather than say the social or historical influences everyone else says about the album. I'm somewhat familiar with Frogstomp, I found it to lack depth. It was some…

silverchair (note, it's not supposed to a capitalized s did you know that!?) is probably one of the bands where a whole mass will claim to hate them, either labelling them as Nirvanabes or just grunge-rock crap. It's too easy to label them as that and just diss them. It's more rational to look at an album musically and its expression, rather than say the social or historical influences everyone else says about the album. I'm somewhat familiar with Frogstomp, I found it to lack depth. It was something to "rock" I suppose, but definitely not my thing nowadays. Back then it was tolerable, really it was just a little fun anger...not much more serious than that.

I got Neon Ballroom after listening to Anthem for the Year 2000 in HMV (go Canada) and kind of liking Johns's voice. The thing about this album is, you can see some ingenuity in the lyrics. It's clever in some parts (notedly Ana's Song: "you wreck my life, like a anorexia life"), and almost a true feeling of bitterness. A friend found it too depressing, if you listen to it face value and "believe" it then sure it can be. But like 99% of bands nowadays, a lot of it is actually lightened up or altered a little for the band's audience. The album is definitely softer in sound, you can hear some complications in arrangements, especially piano in Emotion Sickness and Paint Pastel Princess is quite lovely. I found some other ones to be quite immemorable and lacking any real craft. The fact is, here silverchair isn't really strong on guitars...there are some orchestral excerpts like in Black Tangled Heart and again PAint Pastel Princess that can be quite lovely. If you want to rock out, this isn't the thing. It's a more of a trangression of style and perhaps some serious thinking for the band in straying away from labels. If you take the album as your own opinion and wholely yours, then by all means get it because I recommend some of the technic Johns sings with. If you want to believed it as a flop and awkward stage as stated by critics and fans and would rather prefer their old stuff, you should probably stay away from Diorama as well unless you like full blown can I say...arrangements!

Read the full review

Written by Alistair Crowley

Track listing Edit

CD

format:
number:
title:

number

name

artist

hh:mm:ss

1

Emotion Sickness