In 1994, a Seattle hardcore* band called Sunny Day Real Estate released Diary. It was a veritable tour de force of emotional range, led by the otherworldly falsetto of Jeremy Enigk. It lit the underground music scene on fire—it’s even credited by some as the first proper emo album.
Then, as quickly as they had gained prominence, the group broke up. They released one strange, mathy, untitled follow-up, then the group went their separate ways.
A year later, Jeremy released his first solo record. I’m not sure what Sunny Day fans were expecting, but it was not Return of the Frog Queen.
Jeremy Enigk had cut his teeth leading arguably the most influential emo groups in the world. And while his first solo record has plenty of heart-wrenching catharsis and sneering punk ethos to go around, it bears very little sonic resemblance to his earlier band.
His voice is unmistakably his own. There are even few screams here and there. But there’s very little distortion on his guitar. Only a couple tracks have a drum set (and hey! It’s SDRE’s William Goldsmith, on loan from Foo Fighters!)
But instead of a rock band, he’s joined by a mob of strings, woodwinds, brass, and timpanis. On a few tracks, he leads from the piano.
And despite the shift in sonic palettes, Jeremy Enigk manages to coax the same fiery drama out of a chamber pop album as he could with a four-piece emo band.
Perhaps the most effective of these moments is in “The Shade and the Black Hat.” In the closing strains, the song detours into a jaunty, almost Beatlesy waltz for a few seconds, then Jeremy screams the chorus at the top of his range, igniting an orchestral explosion that burns down the rest of the song.
A lot of rock stars have used orchestral flourishes to add drama. Usually, intending to move toward the middle of the road (think Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”). But Return of the Frog Queen is not geared toward palatability. Rather, this record is less suitable for wide audiences than anything he released with Sunny Day.
It is a profoundly strange record. It dabbles with Eastern key signatures and odd production.
Meanwhile, Enigk’s lyrics make almost no sense at all. As a good Christian teenager who heard that Jeremy’s conversion to Christianity was a catalyst of Sunny Day’s break up, I expected this record to be a more explicitly religious album. But nothing about these lyrics are clear.
His eerie voice slithers around lines like, “Gaze glow and rowing under silver moon. Collide argue tether and fall down again. Surprise me and grind me. Who’s turning red?” What the hell does that mean? I don’t think anyone knows, but his delivery is earnest enough that you believe him.
Throughout his lengthy career—two more albums with Sunny Day, one with The Fire Theft (3/4ths of SDRE), three studio solo records, and a handful of EPs, soundtracks, and guest appearances—Jeremy Enigk would continue to have a fascination with odd melodies, abstract lyrics, and chamber ensembles. But nothing he’s made has ever been anywhere near as strange as Return of the Frog Queen. It is a singular point in his catalogue that exists entirely within itself.
*despite all sense, Sunny Day Real Estate often referred to themselves as a hardcore band.