Bivouac

by Jawbreaker

Overview

As the principal wordsmith for Jawbreaker, Blake Schwarzenbach was one of the first songwriters in the punk scene to embrace literary lyrics more personal and challenging than the often vague or pseudo-political proclamations of the early emo scene and far more intricate than almost all of the band's West Coast pop-punk contemporaries. In their short lifespan, Jawbreaker would arc from their scrappy melodic punk beginnings (Unfun, 1990) to a polarizing major-label swan song (Dear You, 1995) with everything in between, from high-tension band breakups to extended hospital stays, vicious criticism from former allies in the punk scene, and the creation of a subtle masterpiece in 1994's Steve Albini-recorded 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Somewhere in the center lies Bivouac, Jawbreaker's second album and easily their stormiest, gruffest material. The album came after a brief breakup brought on by a devastatingly rocky summer tour, expressed to the hilt in the horrifying lyrics of "Tour Song," with its coda of "Every little thing must go wrong." With a little time, they reunited and relocated from New York to the Bay Area, taking a good amount of city grit with them and applying it to a foundation of sophisticated guitar-based pop songs. While Jawbreaker's heart was composed of Schwarzenbach's poetic storytelling and a sense of romance so immediate it touched the music as much as the lyrics, Bivouac is more marked with musical struggle than any other of the band's albums. Aggressive songs like "Face Down" and "Like a Secret" lean more on dissonance and buried vocals than the group's usual melodicism. Bearing in mind that the landscape of independent punk in 1992 was overshadowed by a booming grunge scene, it makes sense that Jawbreaker's toughest songs on Bivouac have hints of Helmet, Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins, and other acts of the day that were in the process of blowing up. Interspersing classic young-love pop songs like the timelessly sweet "Chesterfield King" and the optimistic "Shield Your Eyes" with more angsty material gives Bivouac a searching quality, clearly made by artists grasping for identity or clarity in changing times. The ten-minute title track finds the coagulation of all the shifting elements of the album, dialing in the swirling basslines and big grunge choruses with beat poet-inspired lyrics aiming to reconcile Holden Caulfield-esque displacement and alienation from immediate family. As the song churns on it sets the scene for what would come next in the band's discography, a more digestible and confident progression in lyrical and musical development. However, the journey to that development is a rocky one, and the unhinged urgency of Bivouac is an enormous moment, and one necessary to go through in order to take Jawbreaker from their naive punk beginnings to the one-of-a-kind band they grew to be before their star burned out abruptly. ~ Fred Thomas

Product Details

Release Date:	12/11/2012
Label:	Blackball Records
UPC:	0759718089912
Rank:	5715

Tracks

1. Shield Your Eyes
2. Big
3. Chesterfield King
4. Sleep
5. Donatello
6. Face Down
7. P.S. New York Is Burning
8. Like A Secret
9. Tour Song
10. You Don't Know
11. Pack It Up
12. Parabola
13. Bivouac
14. Peel It the Fuck Down
15. Ache

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Jawbreaker   Primary Artist
Blake Schwarzenbach   Guitar,Vocals
Adam Pfahler   Drums
Chris Bauermeister   Bass

Technical Credits

Billy Anderson   Engineer,Producer
Lance Hahn   Tray Photo,Photography
Chrissie Hynde   Composer
Joan Jett   Composer
Jonathan Burnside   Engineer,Producer
Blake Schwarzenbach   Composer
Jawbreaker   Engineer,Producer
George Horn   Mastering
Mike Morasky   Engineer,Producer
Adam Pfahler   Composer,Photography
Chris Bauermeister   Composer
Brendan Murdock   Paintings
Jennifer Cobb   Photography