Two of the best Dischord albums didn't actually come out on the legendary punk imprint. In 1994, Atlantic released Jawbox's For Your Own Special Sweetheart and that same year Epic issued Shudder to Think's Pony Express Record. Both groups had made their names on Dischord, and "selling out" was a fraught move for anyone from that world. While neither record made much of a mainstream impact, they were masterpieces that used a major label's resources to magnify, not dilute, an innovative sound formed in a close-knit Washington, D.C. punk scene. Jawbox had a unique approach to that aesthetic with their jazzy time signatures and noise-rock textures, and their major label debut arguably represents the pinnacle of D.C. post-hardcore, catching it just as it made its way into the alt-rock era.
But if Jawbox reasonably fit into the mainstream three years after Nirvana broke, it wasn't meant to last. Beck's Mellow Gold also came out in 1994, leading the way for the stoned, sample-happy kitchen-sink pop that was about to push ideological punk-derived music aside. In the twilight of grunge, Sweetheart could get away with being defiantly noisy and raw. Two years later, Jawbox's self-titled finale, which is now being reissued, showed some signs of capitulation to an omnipresent college-radio sound. A certain passively disaffected mien creeps in here and there, an awkward fit for a famously earnest, intense, and hardworking band. But a few dated details detract little from the songwriting, where rampaging fury is tempered by calculating musicianship, pitch-conscious singing, and precise ethics disguised as cut-up squawks of code.
Jawbox signed with Atlantic in order to play music full-time, not necessarily to become famous, and their contract wasn't onerous. They had a lot of freedom on Sweetheart and anatomized their sound on its greatest song, the angelically bruising "Savory". Nothing about it is hard-charging in the manner of classic hardcore punk; everything coils and squirms in an ominous quiet punctuated by deafening detonations. All of this is still true on Jawbox: J. Robbins' warm, chesty voice oscillates between an ominous croon and an octave-leaping peal. His guitar's spidery treble clashes against Bill Barbot's gnarled, almost bluesy licks, bent out of shape by a high-pressure rhythm section. Zach Barocas lays a volatile foundation, drumming around the beats at a slant, and Kim Coletta's bass embeds more zooms and fillips in outwardly brawny, inwardly delicate masses of sound.
But "preserved" is an apt term, as the record sounds more canned than its predecessor, losing some of its palpable danger. Though the guitar attack can be ferocious, the former dynamic range is squeezed in. Barbot's guitar work is perhaps more inventive than ever before, but instead of exploding into being, it more often sidewinds in and out of the mix. Relaxed, almost boho passages on "Mirrorful", "Desert Sea", and "Livid" sound more like the Breeders and Pavement than Embrace and Rites of Spring, early emo-core bands that influenced Jawbox. My favorite song on the album is also their prettiest ever, "Iodine", a sleepy, melancholy ballad where Robbins sings, with unusual tenderness, over a limpid melody painted in liquid trails of guitar. There's even a hidden song, an unironic (if not overly reverent) cover of Tori Amos' "Cornflake Girl". You can't get much more "120 Minutes" than that.
Signs of the times aside, there is plenty of peak Jawbox to be found. "His Only Trade" churns as thrillingly as "Jackpot Plus!" from Sweetheart, with Robbins' fiery vocal performance matching the urgent lyrics: "Someday he's gonna wake up in a burning house and wonder what to save and wonder who to blame." "Empire of One" finds a deep, exhilarating pocket in jungle drums and terse call-and-response vocals. "Capillary Life" is notably grand and subtle, with a multi-staged depth and scope elapsing in the usual three-or-so minutes. J. Robbins chants and spits like he means it.
But what did he mean? "Best of all," as he sings, "it's open-ended." You'd call the lyrics stream-of-consciousness if they weren't so focused, the phrases and delivery so sharply wrought. Robbins' cryptic tirades have a moral dimension and an aesthetic one; they accuse and self-lacerate; they are wary of systems and alert to betrayals of trust. Two frames in particular stand out. On "Won't Come Off", Robbins sings, "One second cut from the arc of a swan dive, pulled out tight to the pitch of a taut line," as if encapsulating his band's situation and style: An arc of force that has been pulled straight, thrumming with the strength of its own will to bend back. "At the bottom, they all want proof, and at the top, no one's making room," Robbins adds on "Chinese Fork Tie", as if diagnosing his position between an equally restive underground and mainstream.
After their self-titled album, Jawbox's Atlantic sub-label disintegrated and mainstream music moved on from cleaning up punk bands. In their relatively brief existence, they made made a lasting impression on incoming waves of math-rock and post-punk bands with dissonant textures, awkward stop-start dynamics, and knotty instrumental phrasing. And if it's not their best album, their self-titled swan song, frequently cutting through its temporal trappings with that old desperation and drive, still holds up.
