Neon Ballroom

03/16/1999 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Wendy Hermanson

Aussie boys Silverchair have always been about overexaggeration. Lead singer/ axe-kid Daniel Johns--already pushing the envelope by being far better looking than any adolescent male has a right to be--cultivated a vocal style reminiscent of the decade-plus-older Pearl Jam on Silverchair's debut album, backing himself up with giant, morose guitar chords and a sense of (rather senseless) lyrical drama quite grandiose for a 15-year-old. The band's sophomore effort rang solemnly with the same impending doom, belying the fact that this was a trio that presumably picked zits and belched Pepsi like any other normal teens. Add that these records both came out in the mid-'90s, when most adolescent rumps were skankin' to cheerful and stupid second-wave punk rock, and the result was Silverchair seemed a bit too dramatic for their own good.

Well, guess what. The kids (and they are, even now in 1999, still actually kids) finally grew into their oversized flannels. On Neon Ballroom, the band's third record, principal songwriter Johns simply throws himself into the music and blows all hell loose-something he should have done from the start, instead of attempting to mix grunge's humorless gravity with his urge for adolescent drama. Neon Ballroom is campy as hell, and it's great: opener "Emotion Sickness" pairs Johns's huge, quavering voice against a loopy orchestral score and frenetic, magnificent piano courtesy of Shine nutcase David Helfgott. Pretty ballads "Ana's Song" and "Miss You Love" simply ache, in that terrific, over-the-top, inimitable teenage way--and they are just plain good songs, rather than Johns' usual modus operandi of big ol' unstructured chord structure.

Johns hasn't given up grunge completely--"Spawn Again" is a weird redux of Nirvana's "Beeswax"--and he certainly hasn't given up his passion for oratory, occasionally silly lyrics (single "Anthem For The Year 2000" leads off with the whopper, "We are the youth/ We'll take your fascism away"). This slight foolishness, however, merely lends an air of youthful authenticity necessary to keep all the lovely, expansive drama in check.