End of Silence

Rollins Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 1, 1995)
• Original Release Date: February 25, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Imago Records
• ASIN: B0000040OX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,493 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

UK reissue of 1992 album that's unavailable in the US. Remastered by Henry Rollins, the first disc includes one bonus track, 'Next Time'. The initial limited copies of the album include a bonus disc pulling together studio & live material including extend --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The end of silence; the beginning of a new era, October 7, 2000

By 

Paul Mcdonough (Irving, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: End of Silence (Audio CD)

This, the fourth studio session for Rollins band (Hot Animal Machine, Lifetime and Hard Volume) is a true turning point, not only for Rollins, but for music as well. This album is so hard and sooo heavy that it hurts, but that is the idea. Rollins gets through the past in a series of cathartic romps that are both lyrically and sonically awesome; a rare occurence. From Low Self Opinion (the song that should have gotten the same attention as "smells like teen spirit"), to Just like you (the most scathing repudiation of a parent ever written) this album is simply perfect. I have called it the single most important event in my life and I stand by that statement. The jams will rock you hard, the lyrics will both frighten and transport you to another level, while also making you reassess your life to date. With such potent lyrics as "see me, put yourself in my place; be me, put my eyes in your face. Maybe then you'll see, why this place terrifies me." and "You and me, pathetic we cling, we think that we're free. Ugly, you and me, you see, you see, the REAL me." it is hard to ignore this album and even harder to reconcile the fact that it IS largely ignored (as of two years ago Rollins still hadn't seen a profit from this one). Pick up The End of Silence today, it will change your life.

Paul M

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It's a 74-minute Train Wreck", March 20, 2007

By 

this-shere guy - See all my reviews

This review is from: End of Silence (Audio CD)

When I was in high school, I lifted weights in my parents basement for 2 hours every other day. This album was the workout soundtrack for 11th and 12th grade. It's the perfect music to try and punch yourself out to. By the end of the last song, "Just Like You", I would feel spent, rabid. Amazed that Hank still had some left at the end of that relentless 10 minute song. I can't hear any song of this album to this day without feeling that adversarial thrill of those cast-iron afternoons of my youth.

I'm 32 now, still work out seriously with weights, and listen to Hank quite often.

Hank taught me thru this album to be strong, to be self-defined as a person, to be my own person and believe in myself, to stand up and be unafraid. Who else could send a message like that, AND HAVE IT BE COOL?? Hank was like your guidance counselor, telling you to be positive and not to do drugs, but in way that was intense and interesting and made you want to go out and push the envelope with a dangerous mind.

Buy LIFETIME. Buy THE END OF SILENCE. Buy WEIGHT. Buy COME IN AND BURN. Buy GET SOME... Buy NICE. Buy HOT ANIMAL MACHINE. Buy HARD VOLUME.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Good Ol' Bad Days, July 10, 2006

By 

Zachary A. Hanson "Jazzpunk" (Tallahassee, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: End of Silence (Audio CD)

I hope the rock world doesn't forget what a lightning bolt this album was "back in the day." Released a little after Nirvana's _Nevermind_ and Soundgarden's _Badmotorfinger_, it was just about as much a defining piece of the "grunge" movement as these two classics. It was also Rollins's first money-maker, as it was put out by a major label, giving he and his band the production values that they had always lacked in the indie world.

For these reasons, this puts _The End of Silence_ at a thrilling precipice, the one between Rollins's manic catharsis of his demons and his success to come. In a few words, Rollins's paranoia and rage never sounded as genuine after this. He put out a few decent albums after this (those which have the same nucleus as this version of the band--Sim Cain and Chris Haskett: _Weight_ and _Come in and Burn_), but he never sounded as RAW again. And punk underground values being what they are and were, this is the best-recorded document of the truly wild Rollins.

This is also when his band got absolutely tight, going between intense riff-rockers like "Grip" and mind-melting jams like the incomparably angry and schizoid "Obscene." The band only got better musically from here, as evidenced on the previously-mentioned releases (and the band is the main reason to listen to the latter-day Rollins before he fired his original players). Here, on _The End of Silence_, though, we have the complete emergence of a world-class "rage rock" act, full of monstrous chops and full-tilt out-of-control angst on Rollins's part.

So this was the more or less plain-spoken classic of the beginning of the grunge era. Where Kurdt used Rimbaudian poetic indirection and Chris Cornell & Co. opted for Sabbathy apocalypse, Rollins just came out and screamed about what frustrated him ("I'm so confused/ Can't find the line/ Between what I use and abuse"--"Obscene"). He continues this approach often to this day, but it's hard to believe it any longer. It probably just keeps him in his penthouse for another year to put out an album where he's toeing that line. I can still listen to _The End of Silence_ and believe that he's preaching the angry blues here to save his life. Since the music matches this sentiment from start to finish, it felt revolutionary in '91. Now, well, it's indispensable for those times when you just gotta punch a wall, right up there with _Master of Puppets_ and precious few other heavy albums.