silverchair, a trio of teenagers from the Australian resort town of Newcastle, owned alternative radio in Australia with a Pearl-Jammish power ballad, "Tomorrow". Their first full-length release offers a few surprises, though, and while it is derivative, it's also satisfying.
silverchair's previous incarnations won several amateur awards before Australian TV chose "Tomorrow" as the winner of a demo contest whose prize was a recording session in Sydney. Last winter Triple J, Australia's national alternative radio network, helped make silverchair one of the biggest bands down under, by putting a demo version of "Tomorrow" in heavy rotation. By September of 1994 they'd signed with Murmur, a Sony affiliate. This spring, "Tomorrow" became a U.S. alternative-radio hit, and silverchair's first album, Frogstomp, is now in stores on these shores.
In interviews, the band claim their influences are late-sixties bands like Deep Purple and the Doors, but musically, Frogstomp prays at the altar of Seattle's Holy Trinity (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden). Frontman Daniel Johns sounds like Eddie Vedder, especially on "Tomorrow", but on other tracks he manages to get away from the obvious influence; other times he seems to blend qualities of Vedder and Kurt Cobain. The songs themselves reflect the angst expected of fifteen-year olds (the band members were all fifteen when they recorded Frogstomp last winter). One exception is a sort of message song, "Pure Massacre;" Johns rails against "families... being torn apart," but in a vague manner; he could be singing about Bosnia, Ireland, or the U.S. Civil War.
The music is competently played. One of the band's favorite tricks is to kick-start a song from a slow grunge shuffle into a punk tempo for the end. This is carried over across the album, from the lead-off track "Israel's Son" to "Faultline" to "Madman" to the final track, "Findaway." This tendency should make for some intestesting pit action when they tour. If you crave the Pearl Jam/Soundgarden sound, you'll more-than-likely enjoy Frogstomp.
