February Jams ‘25

I think everyone will agree that February is the worst month of the year. The weather is the worst it’s either the coldest it’s ever been in your life or teasing you with brief periods of warm weather just to pull it away like Lucy with the football to poor Charlie Brown. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we’re tired of being Charlie Brown. February’s musical offerings weren’t as bad as the rest of this God-forsaken month, but they provided some mixed feelings. I experienced a good amount of disappointment this month but also a glimmer of hope and a fair amount of pure enjoyment. Again I need to provide a brief disclaimer and explain the concept of this blog series. I’ll keep it more brief than I did in January Jams ‘25, please go back and give that a read if you haven’t. I’m not good about talking about the technical aspects of music so I will primarily focusing on how these song made me feel and a little bit of what I got from the lyrics. To assist in making my points about the quality of the albums I have employed a comparison system between the albums and some of my favorite jams (the ones you spread on toast). Also before I begin, shout out to L.S. Dunes who I missed last month, very good album. With all that out of the way lets talk about the four albums that impacted me the most this February.

Are Silverstein legends? I would say yes. If you are or have been a fan of 2000s emo/screamo post-hardcore you’ll know that “Discovering The Waterfront” and “Arrivals & Departures” are widely considered some of the best the genre has to offer. Their next two albums were good to very good with some great hits on them but they returned to form with “This Is How The Wind Shifts” and “I Am Alive In Everything I Touch” which were spectacular “Je me Souviens” off the latter album is my favorite song of theirs. I feel like Silverstein is particularly difficult to nail down genre-wise since they have evolved a lot over time and they’ve been doing it for 25 years now. They can be at different times called post-hardcore, punk, and even metalcore. So I don’t know exactly what it was that changed in 2017 with the release of “Dead Reflection” but something about their sound fundamentally shifted, and not in a direction I enjoy as much. Steadily since then I’ve enjoyed their new albums less and less and “Antibloom” is unfortunately no different. You may be surprised to read after all that I’ve just said that I think this is a good album. But it’s just good. I expect better than good from Silverstein and that is the nature of disappointment, you can still enjoy something while simultaneously wishing you were enjoying it more. The song that stood out as the kind of Silverstein I like is “Skin & Bones” but other songs I enjoyed include the pop-alt-rock “Confession” the cheery-sounding but lyrically sad “A Little Fight” and the more hardcore leaning “Stress.” The best song lyrically is the final song on the album “Cherry Coke” which gets bonus points for sound like an album ender and is a good song to sing along to. Overall this is a good to very good album at times but it doesn’t reach the heights that they have reached in the past and for me haven’t reached in a while.

Jam Comp: Strawberry Jam, you used to love it but you go sick one time after having it. Its still good but eating it just feels different now.

This is the big negative one. One of if not my most anticipated album of 2025 was “Phobias” by Traitors. One of my favorite deathcore releases of all time is “Anger Issues” and going from that album to this one is like going back to your cousin’s house after a couple of years and you run to the backyard only to discover they got rid of the trampoline. WHERE’S THE FUCKING BOUNCE. The best aspect of Traitors was their groove and their bounciness and I recognize that some of that had started going away with “Repent” but it was still simple enough that you could enjoy it in a similar way. It’s incredibly frustrating to me that it seems like deathcore band feel that in order to evolve as a band they need to become more complicated. This album changes tempo and changes the rhythms between the vocals and the instrumentals so often that it feels disjointed and is not pleasing to follow along trying to figure out how to move with it. “Trauma Bond” and “10DXM” come closest to capturing the groove and bounciness that Traitors used to have and “No Witness” is generally a good song on its own merits but the rest of the album is just a mess. I hear the argument “What are artists supposed to do? Recreate the same album over and over again?” Not necessarily but if the album is great, I fail to see how that would be a bad thing. Change and evolution can be great but also I don’t feel like it is required so change all that much. This album just feels heavy and not in the musical sense, in the weight sense, I feel bogged down by it whereas Traitors used to make me feel light and energized. I wish the best for their career but if this is the path that they need to take to get it, then I’ll be content looking at their success from the outside.

Jam Comp: Apricot, you can have it but I don’t want it souring my scones.

Great pop-punk just has a way of making you feel good, it often gives you what you need when you don’t even know you need it. “My Apologies To The Chef” the debut album by Winona Fighter is refreshing while not reinventing the wheel because there’s a good reason it hasn’t been reinvented yet. Coco Kinnon has a great voice for punk and reminds me of someone I can’t quite place but I would imperfectly describe it as a mix between Alexia Roditis and Hayley Williams. Many of the songs on this album contain the trademark unapologetic defiance associated with the genre. The choruses are fun and catchy and you can easily imagine yourself jumping around and singing along at a summer festival. I’ve talked in the past about the distinction between pop-PUNK, pop-punk, and POP-punk and I would put Winona Fighter squarely in the middle ground with some songs leaning closer to pure punk but on the other end no songs leaning into pure pop. The strength of this album comes with the little injections of personality coming from certain vocal inflections and spoken lines. I really enjoyed the tone and attitude of this album and some highlight songs are “HAMMS IN A GLASS” “TALK” “I Think You Should Leave” I just started listing three other equally good ones so I would say just go listen to the whole album

Jam Comp: Marmalade on a sandwich while you’re watching Paddington with your partner.

February was coming to a close and overall I felt like it was a month that didn’t live up to expectations and Traitors specifically had me longing for 2018. Wait a second. 2018. That’s it! There was an amazing album that come out that year called “Holy Hell” by Architects, and they released “The Sky, The Earth & All Between” on the last day of February. This was my last chance to listen to something that could save the whole month. But their last couple of albums weren’t ass well-received as “Holy Hell” could they do it? Fuck yes they could! Oh my Lord is this a great album. There is not a song that is less than good, they perfectly find the balance between aggression, melodic choruses and awesome breakdowns on damn-near every song on this album. Again, I can’t highlight every song on the album and I suggest you listen to all of them in order because “Elegy” is as good an entry point into this album as any and is a great statement of intent that is followed through immediately by the next two songs in particular. Sam Carter is a singular vocalist and lyricist and his talents are on full display on every song. They even took a considerable risk with the song “Seeing Red” which is a call out of people’s complaints and suggestions on social media which is dangerous territory because you want to avoid at all costs sounding like a certain whiny, transphobic, wannabe-rapper lead vocalist of an inexplicably popular band. I think they pull it off the best that it could be done and it is a very good song, but it does still feel strange having a band address commenters. The last couple of things I was to highlight are their support of new artists with their features from House of Protection, a band started by the two former members of Fever 333, and Amira Elfeky who is on her way to blowing up anyway as she just got announced as a support act on Bring Me The Horizons arena tour but was a good look nonetheless. The final song on the album “Chandelier” is much a much softer song than the rest of the album but is beautiful and emotional and once more at the end brings back a lovely heavy breakdown to bring to song and album to a close. Have I mentioned how much a love when the final song on an album feels like it? Well this song was a perfect end to an album that I think is near perfect for what it is and is designed to be.

Jam Comp: I didn’t think I would do this twice in a row but it has gotta be grape jam, the best jam. I’m still not accepting questions at this time.