A Beautiful Place to Drown

Twenty years in and Burlington, Ontario, post-hardcore quintet Silverstein have clearly learned nothing from nine previous albums’ worth of detailed self-therapy. “I keep chasing bad feelings,” concedes frontman Shane Told with familiar hair-trigger torment on <i>A Beautiful Place to Drown</i>’s opener, “Bad Habits”. “I keep breaking down and never deal with it… I’m good with bad habits.” There’s much to satisfy a protracted Silverstein habit here: All the confessional anguish and slick melodies mingled with eruptions of metallic violence one has come to expect from the band are still firmly in place. But Silverstein’s brand of post-hardcore has always had hints of pop-hardcore buried within its folds, and this album’s polish only makes that clearer, particularly on the synth-y, sax-streaked “All on Me” or the veiled bubblegum ditties “Say Yes!” and “Take What You Give”. Yet what continues to make the band so unique after two decades is how easily they can flit from those easier-to-approach tunes to absolute crushers like “Stop” or the Princess Nokia-featuring “Madness”.