ranking the silverstein discography! :3

xxherlastwalkxx 10/17/2023

alright. i've done this one before but it's been limited to the format of a page on an instagram story which, needless to say, didn't allow for much depth. and, after all, the stars have aligned as if it's my destiny to write this article tonight: i spent all afternoon setting up this website, the same day i get sick and decide that i'm not going to any of my classes the next day. it's past midnight but i've tackled this discography ranking plenty of times, so being tired shouldn't affect my ability to create the list. at least i hope. i just know i'm going to come back to this in a few days and get mad at my own opinions.

i'll be including short songs in this list but it's debatable whether or not it belongs here. i won't be including live albums, compilations or eps.

anyway! so the list begins!!

update i spent over two hours on this. it's literally tuesday now. does anyone know the closest place where i could find some grass to touch

11. short songs (2012)

this one kind of just... exists... the song ideas are great and are all pretty promising, but the album being grounded in the idea of short runtimes obviously doesn't help the album. i'm not going to overexamine this one because i don't think it's trying to be high on this list to begin with. most of the covers are alright, i don't particularly like most of the cover songs on their own merit, but i like silverstein so whatever. shoutout to the orchid cover though. skramz gang

10. i am alive in everything i touch (2015)

i feel like this one kind of got lost between this is how the wind shifts and dead reflection. it certainly has musical elements of both albums, which on the surface sounds awesome, but most of the songs sound pretty uninspired. the production feels kind of lifeless and the album loses a ton of energy because of that. since then, however, the band has gotten better at accomodating clean production and more metal-inspired sounds. it was a necessary step i guess. oh also the closer? the rest of the album is kind of just ok but omg "toronto" is one of the best songs on their discography. i'm begging them to use cello more often... (their live acoustic arrangement of "aquamarine?" they know exactly how to make a depressed chronically online emo girl cry.)

9. arrivals and departures (2007)

yeah. i don't think this is a surprise to anyone. sorry. i, of course, have to give this one credit for having the sort of diy spirit that really defined the early silverstein era, exemplified notably by the unconventional songwriting and (relatively) unpolished production. that's about as much credit as i can give it though. there are some cool ideas here and there, my favorite being the verses of "if you could see into my soul." but cool ideas alone don't carry the album very far, such as with "vanity and greed," which certainly sounds interesting, but as a song feels pretty aimless for a band that's known for particularly emotive songwriting. i appreciate the exploration of new sounds, but it's not an album i really revisit.

HUGE update. i initially had this album at 11 (which put short songs at 10 and i'm alive at 9), but i think it deserves more credit. i think it's more exciting than i'm alive, even if it's still... not silverstein's best work. i was listening to decade this morning (a live album featuring songs from the band's first four albums) and i think that arrivals and departures is actually pretty promising when it comes to live performances. while the album doesn't stand to well on its own, some of the songs have greater merit when played live. knowing the way that silverstein sounds live nowadays, i can't expect that live performances of songs from i'm alive would sound different enough live to be able to say the same about that album, which is why i ultimately decided to put arrivals and departures at a higher spot on this list.

8. misery made me (2022)

this one could be controversial... idk. i will love everything that silverstein releases and i love the direction they're taking with their music recently and this is a great album! but the rankings start getting really competitive with this one. "the altar/mary" is one of their best songs and i couldn't agree more when shane called it their heaviest song. seeing them live and watching their set close with shane alone on stage singing "mary" was probably the greatest moment of my life. one of the rare instances of me experiencing genuine happiness. anyway. it's a great album and definitely one of their richest in terms of musical ideas, but it just doesn't stand out to me as much as other albums of theirs in terms of enjoyment and emotion.

7. rescue (2011)

i know i know. now's the part where i get stoned to death for implying that misery made me is less interesting than rescue. the reason this one is where it is on the list is, frankly, because i'm super sad all the time. i mean come on, it's one in the morning and i'm rating eleven emo albums from memory. i'm obviously not doing well. and songs like "medication," "forget your heart" and "in memory of" are just really good. honestly, i think this album is a really nice, poppier sort of take on the sound they had on shipwreck in the sand.

^{(check out my full review of this one!)}

6. a beautiful place to drown (2020)

tbh this is just a really good album lol? it has a ton of new ideas that the band hadn't really explored before, and despite its more metal-adjacent sound, it's still really sad which is awesome! sadness in music is really important to me. in case you haven't figured that out by now. even more traditionally agressive songs like "burn it down" retain some sort of sadness. i nearly had a heart attack and died when i saw aaron gillespie on the tracklist. "where are you" is a personal favorite. it's just a good albumXD

5. this is how the wind shifts (2013)

i don't even know what to say about this album like? it's an incredibly well executed concept album, the way that the first six songs correspond with the last six songs is not only brilliant but also very satisfying. i love just staring at the back of the vinyl cover where the two groups of songs are lined up against each other. each pair of songs even makes a bigger phrase out of the combination of titles?? i mean come on. even if the songs sucked (they don't) i would have mad respect for this album. but it does help that the songs don't suck. as the sixth album of eleven, it's the perfect centerpiece to such a varied collection of music. i've already talked a lot so i'll just say that "to live and to lose" is awesome and deserves more love and recognition. :3

4. dead reflection (2017)

I LOVE THIS ALBUM SO MUCH i love this album so much... there are so many amazing deep cuts on this album. "mirror box," "demons" and "whiplash" are some of my favorites. and "aquamarine" goes without saying. this is the best album of their later years in my not so humble opinion. it's somewhat reminiscent of 2000s metalcore at times and it's incredibly depressing. the fact that it's only their fourth best album says so much about those other three albums. a ring in a box but not your dream...

3. when broken is easily fixed (2003)

i hate this top three. they all deserve first. but that's not how numbers work so here we are. i honestly love the lofi production and the relatively immature performances. "hear me out" and the title track are easily two of my favorite songs of theirs. the first three songs are all classics and "bleeds no more" has the best lyrics i've ever heard (more accurately, that i've ever read). the slow middle section was a crazy choice and it worked so well. it's a shame they don't encore the song anymore, but they close with "mary" now, which you heard my thoughts on already. i love this album. sometimes it's hard to believe it's only third on the list. i mean it's not like i can just "decide that it's higher" or anything.

2. discovering the waterfront (2005)

DON'T KILL ME DON'T KILL ME DON'T KILL ME i love this album as much as any other girl it's a classic and there are no bad songs and "smile in your sleep" and the title track are two of the best songs ever written. it's still a little immature (positive quality) but has greatly improved production quality since when broken is easily fixed, and it's just so 2000s emo it's impossible not to love it. it'll have you as sad as the character on the cover art by the time you get to "call it karma" (and even sadder after "call it karma"). i cannot recommend it enough if you haven't heard it and if you have heard it i love you

1. shipwreck in the sand (2009)

i cannot express the depths of my emotional attachment to this album. i think i got about as close as you can get to trauma bonding with an album here. sure, maybe you could argue that this is my pick for first place because i'm so attached to it, but i think i got attached to it for its own merit. i remember listening to a ton of rescue and discovering the waterfront at around the same time that i really got into this album, but i didn't get attached to those. the storytelling and songwriting are unmatched by their other concept albums and a ton of their best lyrics are on this album ("vices" and "american dream" come to mind). and don't even get me started on the title track. it's the perfect balance between the band's diy roots and the more focused sounds of their middle/late discography and deserves the first spot whether my relationship with it is healthy or not (it's not).