Jawbox

Jawbox came out of Washington, D.C., in 1989 with J. Robbins singing and playing guitar, Kim Coletta on bass and Adam Wade on drums, and they learned their trade in the thick of the city's post-hardcore scene. Their first two albums, Grippe in 1991 and Novelty in 1992, came out on Dischord, and in time only Minor Threat and Fugazi outsold them on the label. Bill Barbot joined on second guitar and vocals after Grippe, and Zach Barocas took over the drums after Novelty.

Then came the big leap: a deal with Atlantic and, in 1994, For Your Own Special Sweetheart, the album that carries "Savory", the song people still know them by. It's a slow-coiled, angular thing, all tense, interlocking guitars and Robbins' voice straining against the undertow, and it proved a major-label budget could make this band sound bigger without smoothing out a single edge.

A self-titled fourth album followed in 1996, after which they split from Atlantic and broke up the next year. A one-off reunion show came in 2009, a full-time return in 2019, and Brooks Harlan replaced Barbot in 2021, before the band called it quits again in 2025.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.