The tide breaks, a wave of fear
And brave songs disappear to the secret voice of dawn
This last time raise my eyes.
Diary is the debut album by American Alternative Rock band Sunny Day Real Estate, released on the 10th of May 1994. While still firmly influenced by the local scene of their native Seattle, it also borrowed from Post-Hardcore and most notably the encroaching influence of Emo Music. The result is one of the biggest influences on emo, most notably its explosion in popularity during the Turn of the Millennium (or, "emo-flavoured pop punk in the next decade", depending on how you view it). All the future characteristics of emo are here: the vocal delivery, the song structure, the lyrical content and the distortion.
Released while Seattle was still in the midst of its Grunge era, Diary was a notable standout with it's more melodic sound, and is considered the hallmark for emo, followed up by later monumental releases such as Mineral's EndSerenading and American Football's self-titled release.
Tracklist:
- "Seven" (4:45)
- "In Circles" (4:58)
- "Song About an Angel" (6:14)
- "Round" (4:10)
- "47" (4:34)
- "The Blankets Were the Stairs" (5:27)
- "Pheurton Skeurto"
- "Shadows" (4:46)
- "48" (4:46)
- "Grendel" (4:53)
- "Sometimes" (5:43)
Running down these tropes:
- Angst: To a T
- Careful with That Axe: Common on this album.
- Emo Music: Probably the most influential.
- Epic Rocking: "Song About An Angel", which clocks in at a little over six minutes.
- Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: Enigk's voice, when he's not yelling.
- Textless Album Cover: A family of figurines, instead.
- Title by Number: "47" and "48".
- Stop and Go: A common dynamic feature on the album.
- Word Salad Lyrics: Enigk's lyrics were usually very abstract, and tended to favor a stream of disjointed, evocative words, rather than a specific subject matter.
