Review: Glassjaw - Worship and Tribute

artist: glassjaw album: worship and tribute label: warner brothers/i am released: 7/9/02 by: eduardo moutinho On Tuesday, July 9th, Glassjaw’s new album, Worship and Tribute, was released on Warner Brothers/I AM Records. I rushed immediately to the new Best Buy in Denver West during lunch to pick up the CD. Fortunately, it was on sale for $9.99. The first thing I noticed about the album wasn’t music related, rather package-related. The album has no booklet that accompanies it. Instead, they placed a clear sleeve with a record player needle drawn on it. The CD itself looks like a mini-record, and the package like a record player. It’s an interesting design, but I was angry that the lyrics weren’t included in a booklet. Anyway, I drove back to work and I popped the CD into the computer in my office. I expected WinAMP to open and start playing the CD, but immediately I got a Flash program with the Glassjaw logo and some options. These options turned out to include the lyrics, which was great. Also, there are three videos included on the CD for the songs “Cosmopolitan Blood Loss,” “Ape Dos Mil,” and “Must Have Run All Day.” The actual videos for “Ape Dos Mil” and “Must Have Run All Day” consisted of concert footage, while “Cosmopolitan Blood Loss” was an actual MTV-style music video. I found these multimedia enhancements to the CD nice, and they replaced the need for a booklet while giving you a glimpse at the band’s stage show. Glassjaw’s sophomore outing proves to be an evolution for the already revolutionary band. The guitar work, percussion, and vocals are even more interesting and aggressive. The album starts off with the song “Tip Your Bartender,” a relentlessly chaotic opening number that smacks you in the head and puts you in your place. It’s probably the hardest song that Glassjaw has ever done. Daryl Palumbo, Glassjaw’s vocalist, wails at high pitches for the duration of the song, straying away from his normal singing voice, even during the more melodic parts of the song. Nevertheless, the album starts off on a strong note, and is a good indicator of what’s to come. The best song on the album turns out to be “Cosmopolitan Blood Loss.” In my opinion, this is the best Glassjaw song ever, if not one of the best songs ever. In one word, the song is awesome. This is one of those songs that if you listen to it once, you’ll probably listen to it over and over again because it’s so damn good. At least that’s what it’s like with me. The guitar work in the song is spectacular. Sporadically placed harmonies followed by crunchy riffs followed by an even stronger chorus make up the meat of the song. I can’t just say that about one song though, the whole album shows off the band’s musicianship. The songs show off the talent of guitar duo Justin Beck and Todd Weinstock. The bass in the album is excellent, since Dave Allen (Glassjaw’s bass player) knows that a good bass player doesn’t just follow the guitar lines. He goes out on his own and orchestrates groove-laden bass line after groove-laden bass line. It’s fantastic. He’s one of the best out there. Even Glassjaw’s drummer, Larry Gorman, shows his skill for once on Worship and Tribute. He really shows that he isn’t as simple of a drummer as I thought he was. To see what I mean, listen to “Mu Empire.” There’s some great tom and bass work in the song. Anyway, the ability of the band is impressive. I absolutely love the strings; I wish I had some of that talent. Although I’m ranting and raving about the instruments, I can’t overlook Palumbo’s vocal mastery. He’s definitely a different kind of vocalist, the kind which you either love or hate. The closest person I can compare him to is Chino Moreno. I know that raises up the red flag with a lot of people, but I love Chino, and I love Palumbo. He does a lot of peculiar, but cool, iterations. He’ll go from low to high to low to high; it’s very hard to explain. Sometimes he’ll pronounce words in a strange manner on purpose. He does a lot of emotional singing, and a lot of carefully placed screaming. I think his vocal styling is unique and interesting, just like the instrumental aspect. It’s a strange combination that works exceptionally well. Anyway, going back to the album, this is one of those albums with a ridiculous amount of good songs. This isn’t one of those “this album is crap, except for that one song” kind of releases. This is worth the money all the way. I’ll just list all of the good songs on the album to give you an idea: “Tip Your Bartender,” “Mu Empire,” “Cosmopolitan Blood Loss,” “Ape Dos Mil,” “Pink Roses,” “Stuck Pig,” “Radio Cambodia,” “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports,” and “Two Tabs of Mescaline.” There are only two songs on this album that I am not too fond of. I don’t really hate them either, I just think they’re a tad too slow-paced and disorganized for my taste. Nevertheless, this album has fast songs, slow songs, medium-paced songs, songs of all types. “Mu Empire” is a medium-paced song that follows the chaotic “Tip Your Bartender” and precedes the blistering “Cosmopolitan Blood Loss.” It’s a strange place to put the song, but it works. There is the aforementioned drum work by Gorman, but the strength of the song lies in the vocals. There are parts of the song where slow and subtle parts are being played while Palumbo wails emo-style. It’s very cool. The chorus is melodic, with well-done, soothing, backup vocals. “Radio Cambodia” is probably the fastest song on the album, and it’ll appeal to those who like crazy tempo in their music. The pace is vigorous, and it will kick your ass. The guitar work is amazing, with sweet little leads playing over chord progressions. The breakdown in the middle is well done, and acts as a good progression to the climax of the song. It’s like a very fast Thursday song. “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports” (my second favorite song on the album) starts off with a slow melody that builds up to an amazing chorus. This song has a very interesting breakdown where Palumbo starts doing play by play, but instead of narrating a sport, he’s talking about himself. In a horse-racing announcer’s voice he shouts “In first is my heart, closely followed by my mind, in third my body, and coming up from the rear is my soul.” It’s weird, but pretty cool. That breakdown summarizes Glassjaw as a band. They’re different, but so amazing. I look at them as a hybrid of Thursday and the Deftones, with some uniqueness that I can’t point a finger at. I love this band, and I find them to be better than Thursday, or any of the post-hardcore sounding bands that are coming out. This album is a definite improvement over their first (and still very good) outing, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence. The album from start to finish (the final song, “Two Tabs of Mescaline” is definitely worth mentioning, but I don’t want to make this too much of a novel) is a wonderful effort. I'm not sugar-coating this review either. This is one of those amazing albums that comes along once in a long while. Although the band is on a major label now, they haven’t lost their touch at all. They’ve only gotten better… favorite song: "cosmopolitan blood loss" rating:96%/100% listen to glassjaw