By Mariela Fritz
I love post-hardcore. Bands like At The Drive-In, Title Fight, and The Mars Volta rule every single one of my Spotify playlists. The genre itself originated in the mid-1980s after hardcore punk’s explosion in popularity a decade prior. Acts such as Hüsker Dü and Minutemen expanded upon the typical thrashing anger of hardcore punk with more complex arrangements, release, and an emphasis on melodica. By the late 90s and early 2000s, beloved bands like The Used and Saosin were picking up worldwide steam for combining the instrumentation of post-hardcore with emo songwriting. Though its popularity may be waning, post-hardcore lives on still, with more popular bands like Turnstile carrying the torch and evolving the genre into what it is today.
This is all to say, though, that when I think of post-hardcore, few albums as aggressive or influential or perfect come to mind as Glassjaw’s debut album. Released on May 1st, 2000, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence was 21-year-old Daryl Palumbo’s first foray into the world of post-hardcore, and no one could have anticipated how ridiculously popular and important this album would be for the genre.
EYEKTKAS was produced by Ross Robinson, who had worked with bands such as Slipknot, Korn, Blood Brothers, and The Cure. It was released under Roadrunner Records, a homestead label to some of the most popular metal, emo, and post-hardcore bands of the time. The album seemed set up for success— but the label itself showed very little interest in promoting it. In an anecdote serving as a slightly humorous microcosm of its time, this led the band to discourage fans from buying the album once they split from the label, encouraging online piracy on sites like Limewire instead.
In spite of all this, the album received a significant amount of success and acclaim upon release. Nearly 50,000 copies were sold in the US by the time their next album, Worship & Tribute, was released in 2002. NME referred to the album as “Jeff Buckley doused in napalm, crawling through a room full of broken glass.” Kerrang! magazine gave the album a 5/5 star rating. Though the opinions held about this album were generally positive, there was one common criticism found in reviews of both fans and haters alike— the lyrics.
To give some background, this album was written by a then-20 Daryl Palumbo. He was bedridden, in and out of the hospital with Crohn’s disease, with hemorrhaging episodes so bad he truly thought he was going to die. During this time, his girlfriend dumped him, citing their youth and the fact that she didn’t want to have to take care of him for the rest of his life. And based on the album’s lyrics, there seems to have been some infidelity occurring on her part, too. Palumbo, as any testosterone-fueled 20 year old would, was incredibly angry with this, and as a result, the lyrics of this album are what some people may refer to as misogynistic. As an avid feminist, I understand the critiques, and so does Palumbo, who’s since apologized for his writing. However, to me, I don’t see the album as hateful towards women— instead, it’s just very hateful towards this one specific woman. That’s just my opinion, though, so content warning for misogynistic language if you do listen to the album.
Holy exposition, Batman! Now— onto the actual album itself!
Track Ratings:
Pretty Lush – ★★★★☆
Siberian Kiss – ★★★★★
When One Eight Becomes Two Zeroes – ★★★★☆
Ry-Ry’s Song – ★★★★★
Lovelines And Razorbites – ★★★★☆
Hurting and Shoving (She Should Have Let Me Sleep) – ★★★★☆
Majour – ★★★★☆
Her Middle Name Was Boom – ★★★★☆
Piano – ★★★★½☆
Babe – ★★★★☆
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence – ★★★★☆
Motel of the White Locust – ★★★★★
Overall Rating: 4.5/5 or 9/10
This album is heavy, fast, and dangerous. There’s not a single song on this album that I couldn’t imagine listening to while accidentally getting into a car accident. It feels like Daryl Palumbo is using you as his personal punching bag, with walls of chugging guitars and truly disgusting breakdowns filling your ears with no sign of stopping in sight. My absolute favorite songs are “Siberian Kiss” and “Ry-Ry’s Song”, representing two sides of the album’s metaphorical coin. On one hand, “Siberian Kiss” is borderline screamo at some points, its thrashing instrumentals and enraged lyrics making you feel like you were the one who got cheated on, not Palumbo. There’s truly no song I’d rather hear in the pit. “Ry-Ry’s Song”, on the other hand, leans a bit more into the melodic, danceable sensibilities that we sometimes see in short bursts on the album. It’s a lot more sing-songy in spite of it having just as much jealousy and rage as every other song. I think that both songs encapsulate the vibe of the album perfectly, and if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, or if you just want a taste before you jump into it, I highly recommend listening to one or both of those.
Throughout the entire record, we can almost see Daryl Palumbo going through the 5 stages of grief, with an emphasis on anger and denial. He reflects upon his past relationship with nothing but hatred, not only for the homewrecker, but especially for his ex-girlfriend. The lyrics and themes are especially poignant when you remember Palumbo was having constant hemorrhaging flareups and fighting for his life both during and after the making of this album, with his aggressive performance style often triggering episodes of Crohn’s. That sheer fact alone speaks so much to Daryl’s energy and commitment, and kind of perfectly encapsulates the album as a whole— being so unbelievably angry at someone, that you’d put yourself in harm’s way if it meant exacting some form of revenge.
Without this album, post-hardcore would be an incredibly different genre. 25 years later, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence’s legacy lives on, with swaths of alternative artists citing the album as a key inspiration in their musical career. The album continues to be popular among old and new audiences alike, with Glassjaw wrapping up a very successful tour celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2022. Though its contents continue to be divisive, the impact and influence that EYEWTKAS had is undeniable, and it continues to fuel the new generation of post-hardcore to this day.