For the past two decades, Silverstein have relentlessly pushed themselves to become the best version of the band for both themselves and their fans. That determination has led the Ontario-based five-piece from their underground roots to becoming one of the most influential bands in their scene, playing two thousand-plus shows all over the globe, and selling over a million records. Now Silverstein are celebrating their 20th anniversary with the release of their 9th, and perhaps strongest album to date: A Beautiful Place To Drown.   While many bands would take their 20-year anniversary as an opportunity to rest on the laurels of nostalgia, Silverstein (vocalist Shane Told, guitarists Paul Marc Rousseau and Josh Bradford, bassist Billy Hamilton, and drummer Paul Koehler) see the landmark as a time to appreciate how far they’ve come, while also channeling all those years of experience into something new. Rousseau explains, “To me, the best way to honor the anniversary is to keep doing what got us this far. Being adventurous has always been part of what the band does—we keep focusing on moving forward.” A Beautiful Place To Drown finds the band deftly balancing their core sound—an intensely dynamic mix of melody and aggression, rooted in the energy of hardcore punk and the unabashed earnestness of emo—with their natural growth as songwriters and evolving inspirations. “We have so many fans that have been with us from the beginning and have grown up with us, but at the same time we have new people that come on board with each album,” says Told. “So we really do try to find a way to please the people who have been with us from the start while also having some modern aspect to what we do.”   Forged in their longevity, the confidence Silverstein has in one another enables the band to find this sort of careful songwriting alchemy. “Everyone has carved out their role,” Koehler says. “And we trust each other in those roles.” Rousseau, the “newest” member of Silverstein (after joining in 2012 following four years of touring as the band’s guitar tech), found his songwriting duties expanding along with his enthusiasm for pushing the band into new territory. “The only clear objective I have when I start writing is to not repeat myself,” he says. “This far into our career I was feeling a lot of freedom because we already have this large back catalog. It felt like a hall pass to see what Silverstein could potentially sound like.” A Beautiful Place To Drown fulfills that potential, seamlessly merging the band’s evergreen strengths with a daring approach to composition and production. Recorded with producer/engineer Sam Guaiana, the album’s 12 tracks blend vibrant contemporary sonics with walls of distorted guitars and pummeling drums to create a sound that’s stunningly cohesive, and undeniably Silverstein. “When we started the band, we had a lot of rules for ourselves, but once you let go you realize there’s so many ideas you might enjoy trying,” Told says. “But we’ve always made the songwriting paramount. If you boil it down to a great song, it doesn’t matter what era it’s from or what production it has.”   The opening salvo of “Bad Habits” and “Burn It Down” wastes no time in delivering the familiar Silverstein drive, but within the explosive riffs and propulsive rhythm section there’s an element of potent pop songcraft—a sharpness to melodies that makes each anthemic chorus all the more effective. The songs also begin to introduce the album’s lyrical motifs: an exploration of the mental duress that seems to become more and more inescapable in a world struggling to deal with the personal and societal challenges of modern life. Rousseau explains, “Everywhere you look people are dealing with these controlling invisible forces like anxiety and depression. It can be a suffocating presence.” Told adds, “Everything that’s going on in the world can directly affect your mental state, and that strife is so palpable that it’s found its way into the songs.” Tracks like “Shape Shift” and “September 14th” grapple with powerlessness in the face of those who abuse positions of power, while “Infinite” and “Madness” look at the toll of mental illness and the vicious cycles that can exacerbate it.   The latter songs feature two of the album’s numerous guest spots, and while contributions from other artists has been a longstanding tradition throughout Silverstein’s discography, the collaborations on A Beautiful Place To Drown seem particularly representative of the band’s past, present, and future. Old friends (Underoath’s Aaron Gillespie, Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo, and Simple Plan’s Pierre Bouvier) and new ones (Interval’s Aaron Marshall, and Princess Nokia) make appearances that feel like a celebration of the band’s wide-reaching impact as well as their ability to win over listeners in all worlds of music. “I think people care less about labels and genres than they ever have,” Told says. “We’ve always been okay with how emo can mean so many different things, and from the start we wanted our band to bend genres.”   That willingness to follow their own path has been an integral part of the past 20 years of Silverstein, and A Beautiful Place To Drown once again proves the band’s unique compass is true. “I think we’ve always had something to prove,” Koehler says. “When you lose that, you pack it in. But we always have goals, things we want to do and want to do better.” Told laughs, “I don’t know how other bands operate, I’m still in my high school band!” But looking at all they’ve accomplished and all that’s to come, he echoes Koehler’s sentiment: “It’s harder to gauge success these days but we’re still making what we believe is our best music. It’s nice to know that we’ve survived and we did it in a way that feels right.”

It’s okay for things to end. There doesn’t always need to be a new beginning either. Instead, you can just pick up and keep moving. You’ll probably be better off for it. Sonically and spiritually, The Plot In You continue to move forward on their fifth full-length album and second for Fearless Records, Swan Song. The Ohio quartet— Landon Tewers [vocals], Josh Childress [guitar], Ethan Yoder [bass], and Michael Cooper [drums]—stare down years of negativity, soured friendships, disappointment, and mistakes and flush it all away in the wake of hammering distortion, towering melodies, cinematic production, and unapologetically cathartic lyrics. After racking up over 100 million streams and receiving praise from Billboard, Rock Sound, Alternative Press, and more, the group wave off darkness with unassuming confidence and clarity. “The album is about the end of things, the end of friendships, the end of relationships, and the end of people’s lives,” admits Landon. “There’s not a whole lot of hope. On the other side of it, my life is in a way more positive place now. I said, ‘Alright, this is all of the bullshit I can conjure up in my life. Goodbye’. It was therapeutic to dispense all of these painful things from the past and wash out the negativity.” They certainly earned the right to do so. Ascending to the apex of an eight-year grind, the band reached critical mass on 2018’s DISPOSE. The standout “FEEL NOTHING” exploded with 28 million US streams, while the project eclipsed 55 million US streams. Billboard raved, “DISPOSE is the band’s most polished and cohesive work to date,” and Alternative Press noted, “DISPOSE makes it clear that TPIY challenge both the listeners and themselves more and more with each release.” Grading the album “9.0-out-of-10,” Rock Sound predicted it “should finally – and deservedly – make The Plot In You a name that everyone knows.” They supported the record by hitting the road with Underoath, The Amity Affliction, Like Moths To Flames, Sum 41, and more. During late 2019, Landon started to kick around ideas for what would become Swan Song. By the time the Global Pandemic swallowed 2020 whole, he found himself with an entire year to finetune. Taking the reins as producer, the album came to life in his Michigan studio. “I was nowhere near being done with it when the Pandemic started,” he admits. “It was nice to have the extra time. If I got stuck on an idea, I could take a week off and come back with a fresh ear. In terms of subject matter, it concerns friends who got into drug abuse super bad and friends I’ve lost. There are songs about my weaknesses in relationships. I didn’t really stick to one theme. As a producer, I felt confident enough to take on all of the work. I decided rather than punishing someone else, it was best to do it myself,” he laughs. Introducing Swan Song, the first single “Face Me” pairs clean vocals with stark icy production punctuated by a glitchy beat. It spirals into a soaring hook uplifted by a sinewy guitar riff. “I was in a place in life where things just did not seem like they were working out,” he explains. “You’re feeling lost, but then you meet someone who is so put together. You’re in a rough place, and you don’t want to drag this other person down. At the same time, you want to hold on to this new special thing. You realize you have to let go of something beautiful sometimes.” Warped distortion howls as warbling vocal transmissions echo through “Paradigm.” A stomping groove rushes right into another chantable chorus “about how fans of entertainment look up to creators like gods, but it’s a very toxic thing since the people you idolize don’t care about you.” Then, there’s “Fall Again.” It cuts ties with a searing scream, “If you fall again, then you’re on your own.” “It’s probably the darkest track on the record,” he sighs. “I had a friend who was really wrapped up in the drug world—the business side and as a severe user. He was bringing everyone down around him. He got sucked into that lifestyle very hardcore and ended up losing his life. You can’t latch on to people who are damaging and potentially harmful. You have to save yourself.” “Too Heavy” leans into melodic delivery backed by airy electronics as he details “holding on to a relationship that’s falling apart for dear life.” Meanwhile, “Too Far Gone” culminates on another resounding refrain evocative of the band’s range. “It’s a lot of self-realization,” he observes. “You get to the breaking point. Someone’s honest enough with you about certain things, and you realize you’ve gone a lot farther down the rabbit hole than you ever imagined.” In the end, The Plot In You might just help you move forward too. “This is therapy,” he leaves off. “It’s like how people keep journals. This is me being completely honest.” BOILER The Plot In You continue to move forward on their fifth full-length album and second for Fearless Records, Swan Song. The Ohio quartet— Landon Tewers [vocals], Josh Childress [guitar], Ethan Yoder [bass], and Michael Cooper [drums]—stare down years of negativity, soured friendships, disappointment, and mistakes and flush it all away in the wake of hammering distortion, towering melodies, cinematic production, and unapologetically cathartic lyrics. Ascending to the apex of an eight-year grind, the band reached critical mass on 2018’s DISPOSE. The standout “FEEL NOTHING” exploded with 28 million US streams, while the project eclipsed 55 million US streams. Billboard raved, “DISPOSE is the band’s most polished and cohesive work to date,” and Alternative Press noted, “DISPOSE makes it clear that TPIY challenge both the listeners and themselves more and more with each release.” Grading the album “9.0-out-of-10,” Rock Sound predicted it “should finally – and deservedly – make The Plot In You a name that everyone knows.” They supported the record by hitting the road with Underoath, The Amity Affliction, Like Moths To Flames, Sum 41, and more. After racking up over 100 million streams and receiving praise from Billboard, Rock Sound, Alternative Press, and more, the group wave off darkness with unassuming confidence and clarity on Swan Song ignited by the single “Face Me.”

“Things aren’t going to get better. Not everything heals with time and problems don’t just go away. Problems haunt you, infect you, and in time become a part of who you are. You might find ways to distract yourself or try and forget but every time you look in the mirror you’ll only see reminders of what you hate. Evil surrounds us and in time, becomes a part of who we are. Let this band be a reminder of that.” Towards the end of Chris LoPorto’s description of his band Can’t Swim, you’ll note the use of the word ‘evil’. He couldn’t help gravitating towards it during the making of their second album, to such a degree that the working titles of its songs were littered with it; a catch-all word that summarized the malevolence he felt about a number of elements in his life, be it the events of a past he continues to be governed by, and the wrongdoing he’s observed in his immediate surroundings and society as a whole. This Too Won’t Pass was that album’s eventual title, an inversion of a well-known adage about time healing all things, because, as Chris suggests, he doesn’t entirely believe it can. Can’t Swim articulate our struggles with the people, places and events that continue to shape our lives and scrape our hearts, but with one clear distinction: they show us that while exploring them may provide us with a momentary sense of clarity, it doesn’t necessarily bring us the clear-cut catharsis we’re told it will. It’s for that reason that This Too Won’t Pass finds Can’t Swim continuing to mine the vein of pain and sadness opened open on their debut album, Fail You Again, but that’s good news for those given comfort by that critically acclaimed act of bloodletting. Despite having such an intense output, Can’t Swim’s formation was a relatively straightforward one. (“There’s no crazy Black Flag-type story,” says Chris.) The band grew up in Keansburg, New Jersey on a diet of bands that were musically aggressive, lyrically introspective, or both. If that seems like an obvious starting point, it wasn’t; Chris didn’t have designs on being a songwriter from an early age, nor indeed a singer or guitar player. Inspired by his drummer uncle Mike, who played in local bands The Brutally Familiar and The Piss and toured with the likes of Bad Brains and Gorilla Biscuits, he started out behind the kit. Despite playing in a number of punk bands, Chris had the opposite of the punk mindset. He was an obsessive and fastidious student, practicing endlessly and spending the little money he had on VHS tapes to play along with. By the time he started programming drums and recording the efforts of other bands, it became clear Chris’s ambitions were beginning to outstrip his initial instrument of choice. “I’d played drums for 15 years and think I used them as a crutch,” he says. “Can’t Swim was my motivation to learn more. I borrowed a guitar, moved my fingers like an idiot for hours and wrote some songs.” The resulting songs impressed Chris’s close friends, guitarist Mike Sanchez, bassist Greg McDevitt and drummer Danny Rico, who’d bring them to fuller life on Can’t Swim’s debut EP, Death Deserves a Name, which soon caught the attention of Pure Noise Records, who signed the band. Despite having never played a live show at that point, the EP saw the arrival of their sound fully formed: stabbing riffs informed by Chris’s rough – almost resentful – playing style, and lyrics focussed on those experiences that leave us with sharp pains that may lessen to dull aches over time, but never go away. It’s no coincidence that Chris’s ex-girlfriend was on the EP’s artwork. She was also on the cover of full-length debut album Fail You Again, which was once again produced by drummer (and now guitarist) Danny Rico and brought Can’t Swim to the attention of a wider audience. Chris thought it would, not just because he knew if he was a kid in his late teens or early twenties those songs would mean something to him, but because the subject matter continues to affect him to this day. There are, however, still deals with the topics that continue to keep Chris awake at night and fans gravitating towards his band. My Queen is, Chris says, a typical break up song that finds him facing up to, and coming to terms with, the fact he’s generally responsible for the end of his relationships. As if to illustrate the point, “sometimes you meet the right people at the wrong times” is named after the words written on the back of a photograph given to him by an ex-girlfriend as a parting gift after he broke things off. Meanwhile, the final track, Winter of Cicada, harks back to the pivotal relationship of Chris’s life, with the ex-girlfriend from the cover of Death Deserves a Name and Fail You Again – much to his frustration. It includes the lyric ‘How can I be sure it gets better? I’ve written every word, every letter’ and concludes with the words ‘Forever in regret’. Listeners certainly won’t regret continuing this journey with Can’t Swim, because it’s delivered by four people that are perturbed by how much meaning and integrity has taken a backseat in music and are keen to re-establish it front and centre. This Too Won’t Pass is an album made by people for whom music means everything and want their music to mean the same to others. Thankfully, given the uncontrollable energy and unbridled honesty on display here, it’s likely they’ll get their wish.