More than any of their peers in the early 2000s movement colloquially known as "screamo," Silverstein have managed to stay relevant. While the majority of the other scream/sing crews have either broken up or been relegated to playing anniversary tours, Silverstein have continued to release relevant material. Sure, they did a ten year anniversary tour for Discovering the Waterfront, but that trek was sandwiched between the Burlington band's best effort since that 2005 sophomore smash, 2013's This Is How the Wind Shifts, and this year's I Am Alive In Everything I Touch.
The album's first proper track, "A Midwestern State of Emergency," recalls their last LP, and "Buried at Sea" and "Je Me Souviens" could be outtakes from Discovering the Waterfront, unearthed a decade later. "Desert Nights" skips both the post- and hardcore signifiers and goes straight pop-punk — the catchiness of which the band mastered long ago in their infectious choruses — while "Late on 6th" and "Toronto (Unabridged)" strip it down even further. The latter is an ode to the alienation one feels returning home after being away a long time, and hits particularly hard thanks to a building crescendo that crashes and fades out as vocalist Shane Told proclaims, "This city is a stranger to me." The title of their latest isn't hyperbole; if this record's any indication, Silverstein are most definitely still alive.
(New Damage)The album's first proper track, "A Midwestern State of Emergency," recalls their last LP, and "Buried at Sea" and "Je Me Souviens" could be outtakes from Discovering the Waterfront, unearthed a decade later. "Desert Nights" skips both the post- and hardcore signifiers and goes straight pop-punk — the catchiness of which the band mastered long ago in their infectious choruses — while "Late on 6th" and "Toronto (Unabridged)" strip it down even further. The latter is an ode to the alienation one feels returning home after being away a long time, and hits particularly hard thanks to a building crescendo that crashes and fades out as vocalist Shane Told proclaims, "This city is a stranger to me." The title of their latest isn't hyperbole; if this record's any indication, Silverstein are most definitely still alive.