Orange Rhyming Dictionary

Tea pairing: Sencha tea with sugar

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When Jawbreaker broke up in 1996, the underground punk scene had lost one of its finest bands. Despite “selling out” the legendary three piece had garnered a dedicated fan base throughout the country and Europe as well.

To this day, Jawbreaker is heralded as one of the best emo/punk rock bands of all time, so when Blake Schwarzenbach packed his bags and left the East Bay for Manhattan it could be fair to say that the eyes of many Jawbreaker fans were following him closely.

A little over two years after the band’s break up, Schwarzenbach and his new band Jets To Brazil put out their debut album, Orange Rhyming Dictionary. The album shares a generous amount of similarities to Dear You, but it is a definitely a more stripped down, indie/post-hardcore effort that meshes gloomy lyricism with slightly less gloomy lyricism and enough edgy guitars to make old and new fans alike thrash around.

The creation of Orange came after Schwarzenbach moved to New York, who initially had no intentions to continue a music career. It was only when a friend of his girlfriend, Jeremy Chatelain, approached him and pitched the idea of forming a band.

Chatelain was involved with Handsome at the time, but opted to jam with Schwarzenbach instead. After a couple sessions with drum machines, former Texas Is The Reason drummer Chris Daly joined up and Jets To Brazil was official.

Orange is a solid alternative record that lends itself nicely to indie, emo, and post-hardcore through Schwarzenbach’s trademark confessional lyrics and the heavy guitar and drumming found on tracks like “I Typed For Miles” and “Chinatown.”

For a hardcore album, Orange certainly stands out. One of the album's best tracks is “Chinatown” which tackles the events of the 1974 neo-noir classic. As a big fan of the film, I was delighted to hear Schwarzenbach’s poetic approach to the plot, and so were many others. “Chinatown” has been cited as one of the best emo songs to date. It is important to note that upon release, Orange saw a good deal of critical and commercial success.

Jets To Brazil, in my opinion, was the perfect platform for Schwarzenbach to explore more personal themes and experiment more. There is a very obvious feeling of freedom that flows throughout the 52 minute runtime of Orange and it can be attributed to Jets being signed to the legendary indie emo label Jade Tree.

Jade Tree is widely known as a powerhouse within the emo and hardcore community, having signed dozens of beloved emo acts over the years. Even in 1998, when Orange was released, Jade Tree was seen as the emo Mecca of record labels.

So, with a legendary label, and sort of hardcore supergroup as the rhythm section, confessional lyrics, and production being headed by a hardcore legend, J. Robbins of Jawbox, you get a solid album filled to the brim with emo edginess.

And that emo edginess is found in spades in “Sea Anemone” where Schwarzenbach paints a vivid and heartbreaking picture of a break up, finding comfort in the little things, and the contemplation of suicide.

It is a somber, albeit oddly soothing track that has one of the best instances of imagery with the line “Turtle on its back in the desert sea, and you look like a cool drink, just slightly out of reach”. I mean, come on. How can you not see what he’s describing?

Then there’s the serene love song “Sweet Avenue” that I love listening to on warm summer days. It is the perfect closer for an album that is rife heartbreak, loneliness, and bittersweet joy. “Thank you for making me see there’s life in me, it was dying to get out” Schwarzenbach croons amongst soft acoustic guitar playing.

In all honesty, Orange Rhyming Dictionary is one of my all time favorite emo records, and I know I say that a lot, but there is truly something about this one that I feel an affinity to. It’s the gloominess and slightly less gloominess that I connect to on a personal level that makes me love this record each time I put it on. I’ll have to revisit this album in a future review to just talk more about the other tracks, but until then give this one a listen. Or two, or three.