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Date Posted: 07:27:47 03/10/02 Sun
Author: rockin' chair
Subject: 4.5 stars from rolling stone!

yay sweet, a rollingstone review is up @ silverchair.nu.
they give two more song titles, Lever and My Favourite Thing. Well i haven't read it properly yet but i think i'm pissed at the reviewer about saying ben and chris might have to find new day jobs, if he's saying they're not good enough or whatever he can go to hell but i'm probably not reading it properly, i'm tired and not 100% sober. it sounds not as hard rcok as before but i dont think i'll mind cos we've still got freeakshow n frogstomp when we need some rawwwkkk :) i'm sure diorama will be great

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Diorama Review
4 1/2 Stars out of 5
Jeff Apter, Rolling Stone 599, April 2002

'Man, the arrogance of youth, Silverchair singer-songwriter-guitarist Daniel Johns may be all of 22, but 4 albums in, he's binnes the easy thrills of arena sized riffs and post-flannel angst. Going light on the anti-depressant murkiness and heavy on surround-sound atmosphere, Diorama is one of the boldest musical statements ever made by an Australian rock band. Seriously.

Don't get me wrong: Johns isn't totally alone in this rock odyssey. Bandmates Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou slip comfortably between the kackhammer rhythms of "Lever" and the album's numerous moodier, more sombre passages. And on several tracks, piano man Paulmac gives his keys the same kind of lashing that David Helfgott did with Neon Ballroom's opener, "Emotion Sickness". Journeyman Jim Moginie is in there as well. But Johns' two main consortsfor Diorama are producer David Bottrill (tool, king crimson) and legendary composer/arranger Van Dyke Parks. WHile Bottrill keeps Johns' big musical dreams on course-and encourages him to sing with more soul and passion than ever before - Parks sprinkles his orchestral fairy dust over the albumss epic, sprawling centrepieces "Tuna in the Brine" (crap title, great song), the sweeping lead-off track "Across the Night" and the gorgeous "Love Your Life". This trio of songs are so atypical Silverchair (and yes, the "S" is now upper-case), so broad in their vision and cinematic in their employment of a 40 piece orchestra that long-term Chair nuts might be feeling lost. Red-,eat power chords are replaced by the kind of melodies Brian Wilson - Parks' sonic soulmate from the 60s - wouldn't kick out of bed. And the easy fix of wall to wall riffage, which the band had specialised in up until Neon Ballroom, is ditched in favour of tunes that ebb and flow like the best soundtrack you've ever heard. Given that the songs have picked up on the mood of Neon Ballroom's "Emotion Sickness" and "Miss You Love" and headed even further into that good night, drummer Gillies and bassman Joannou might soon be looking for day jobs.

Of course, Johns is savvy enough to acknowledge that it was the stuck-pig guitars and tortured vocals of Frogstomp and Freak Show that got him to this point in the first place. SO there's no shortage of rock on Diorama. Both 'lever" and "One Way Mule" kick like wounded beasts, but their high-voltage riffology doesn't sit comfortably with the albums orchestral soundscapes. This creates a serious dilemma for....well, maybe not johns, who seems well pleased with the direction he's taking Silverchair. But all those two-finger saluters who've eaten up such chair standards from yesterday as "Tomorrow" and "Pure Massacre" might be left behind.

Still, the indications were there pre Diorama - Paulmac featured heavily on Neon Ballroom, and his refiguring of "Freak" was an early indication that rock wasn't the only sound tht stirred Johns' musical soul. Then there was also their eccentric, wayward indulgence piece-cum-collaboration, "I can't believe it's not Rock" from 2000.

It there's a downside to Diorama, it's Johns' lyrics, which still ring a little hollow, a bit too much like the not quite formed jottings of some teenager who feels left out in the cold. When he states, "you're the fungus in my milk" during the album's first single, "the Greatest View", you know that Tim Rogers or Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning really have nothing to fear. But as Johns has declared, there's definately a positive uplift to Diorama, rather than neon ballrooms bleakness. It's best expressed by the buoyant mood of "Love Your Life" and "My Favourite Thing", rather than their lyrics. Still, that's a minor quibble. No one seemed concerned that Thom Yorke rambled like a day release lunatic throughout Amnesiac. And Daniel Johns comes so close to achieving his epic rock dream with Diorama that it's beyond words: you can feel the weight of public pressure lifting from his scrawny shoulders as the music swirls and drifts off into the stratosphere. The narcotic fog of Neon Ballroom has cleared. Silverchair are shooting for the stars.'

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