Silverstein-Rescue
Rising to fame with their much-loved breakthrough album 'Discovering the Waterfront' back in 2005, Canada's post-hardcore heroes Silverstein are keeping the classic 00s embodiment of the genre alive with their latest effort 'Rescue'. Although by no means a departure or musical experiment, the record is a collection of finely crafted and endearing songs that are both tunefully pop-punk as they are ragingly heavy.
Opener 'Medication' ushers in the album in rather pummelling fashion with dramatic drums meeting haunting guitar lines before vocalist Shane Told, who puts in a brilliantly versatile performance throughout, echoes both New Found Glory's Jordan Pundik and Alexisonfire's George Pettit within a mere ten seconds of breathing space. 'Sacrifice' welds a classicly anthemic chorus to crushing beat-downs and rabble-rousing roars and 'Forget Your Heart' takes a more mid-tempo pace in its introspective frustration, reminding of the emotional title-track from '...Waterfront'. With Craig Owens' successful re-emergence in D.R.U.G.S, John Nolan and Shaun Cooper's return to Taking Back Sunday and Funeral For A Friend returning forcefully back to their roots, a classic post-hardcore/emo revival seems to be taking place and it's a brilliant thing. Admittedly, unlike the aforementioned bands, most of the songs on 'Rescue' do follow the same format but the majority are hard-hitting enough for this mostly not to matter, indeed brutal highlight 'The Artist' hits just as hard as the heavy moments on A Day To Remember's most recent album and the record's choruses should have festival crowds bouncing in hysteria over the coming months.
Occasionally the album does feel unbalanced however and this is where its flaws lie, it's very evident from the first listen that the likes of the massive 'Live to Kill' are far superior to the predictable 'Darling Harbour'. Undeniable feelings of mighty defiance are peppered throughout the twelve songs though which adds an uplifting feel to the band's sound with Told screaming 'I know you'll never change' and 'While you become yesterday's headlines' to often devastating effect alongside the scythe-like guitar interplay of Neil Boshart and Josh Bradford. In a nutshell, when the album really wants to hit, it hits hard.
'Rescue' is a solid post-hardcore record with some soaring heights and is recommended for any fan of both the former and pop-punk.