All things considered, ‘The Year Of Silverstein’ has been running pretty smoothly. They’ve already released a good album in Antibloom, and by all accounts, they’ve been performing well on their 25th anniversary world tour. (They did get overshadowed by their supports on the UK leg, but when that’s Thursday and The Callous Daoboys, it’s forgivable.) For a band still wearing an outfit of mid-2000s emo so far after the fact, it’s nice to see Silverstein continuing to produce work and efforts to be rather pleased with. Plus, the fact that there’s a second album from them in 2025 would suggest more going on that simply nostalgic inertia.
That said, with Antibloom and Pink Moon now together, you get the full picture of what seems to be an intentionally unmoving needle. They’re both accompaniments to the event of Silverstein’s big year instead of any kind of augmentation. Further to that, they didn’t need to split into two releases; there’s not a creative reason for it other than to have two albums. And at only eight tracks apiece, neither are substantive listens, nor do they seem concerned with anything too new. Pink Moon even has the feel of the lopped-off back end of a full project—a faithful continuation of what came earlier, though unable to fully match the highs of Don’t Let Me Get Too Low or Skin & Bones.
So, yeah, Pink Moon is definitely the lesser of the two halves, with a bunch more flaws presented openly and identifiably. It’s an inessential listen, more so than even Antibloom as a straight mean-average of Silverstein. There’s nothing that strays too far from the middle stratum of the overall spectrum; if anything, letting itself rage more would be for the best, particularly on breakdowns that could be pushed further without compromising these songs’ scale and anthemic nature. It also has perhaps the weakest cut across this whole double-album venture in I Love You But I Have To Let You Go, a fragment of treacly piano-pop where Shane Told’s mega-earnest delivery begins to waver in its tolerability.
And yet, for most of Pink Moon, there’s a prickle of energythat shorts out the gripes as best as it can. You can tell that it originated from the same recording sessions as Antibloom when its shades of boldness are basically the same, and when they’re presented with the verve of a band who, unequivocally, are still trying. It’s what’s so fundamentally likable about Silverstein to this day—as obstinate as they can seem, it’s rarely the same rod for their back that almost all of their contemporaries fall to. You aren’t seeing, like, Hawthorne Heights casually dropping quality bangers like Autopilot or Death Hold anymore, are you?
That’s a direct result of how good Silverstein—or, more specifically, Shane Told—have been made to sound. A voice as strident and heavily DeLonge-ated as his works best when it’s front, centre and immaculate; same with a still-strong screaming technique, too. Critically, it never gets to a point where the guest performers upstage him, or indeed, the rest of the band. Rory Rodriguez sounds good on Drain The Blood, though that might be because he’s sequestered in his own little section that’s more or less like what he’d normally do with Dayseeker. Conversely on Autopilot, Cassadee Pope is allowed to integrate, but not to where she doesn’t sound multiple metres behind Told on their choruses.
At least when it comes to Silverstein themselves, it’s good to know that no chances have been taken in making this as slick and perfectly arranged as possible. It is their year, after all, and Pink Moon plays like the work of a band for whom that level of self-confidence is the absolute baseline. In Silverstein’s minds, they don’t need grand swings as long as what they’ve got already is the best it can be, and it’s not like they’re wrong in that assessment. It’s great to hear a bit of nervy punk and post-hardcore gnash wash back into Negative Space and The Fatalist; a few drops of extra sauce in the ragged bass of Drain The Blood and the lower guitar sizzle on Widowmaker also doesn’t go amiss. And when you get the choruses that are the ideal vehicle for Silverstein’s emo melodrama, even a quarter of a century in, their longevity makes all the sense in the world.
That makes for an interesting thought to ponder, about how Silverstein have been offered a degree of grace that basically no one else has. The music they’re making now isn’t profound or enrapturing or even all that fresh, but scarcely any in the same field have this kind of hawk-eye accuracy for what they want, demonstrated time and time again. You can almost ignore how the separation of Antibloom and Pink Moon is to artificially raise the stakes; Silverstein don’t need that when their abilities are proven. That’s why they’re worth keeping around, and why their year-long anniversary bash can be commended. For a band still lodged a good two decades in the past, there’s an impressive urge to avoid travelling backwards.
For fans of: The Used, Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights
‘Pink Moon’ by Silverstein is out now on UNFD.
Words by Luke Nuttall
