The Incoherant Ramblings of a Poetic Compulsive: Music Review: Switchfoot's "Nothing is Sound"

Let’s go straight to the best stuff, shall we?

High Point: "We Are One Tonight" is my favorite song. It's a great tune from start to finish, perfect dynamic, beautiful hook, and lovely melody, catchy as all get out. Great use of guitars, acoustic and electric alike. Jon's vocals are ideal for a song like this. It starts a little slow, but gives you a sensation of building up to the chorus, which is the shining star on the album for me. Verse 2's rhythmic snare banging strikes a chord of brief annoyance, but is quickly broken up in the pre-chorus channel. I could listen to that chorus over and over again though. The absolute BEST part of the album so far though is the ending chorus. He comes down with toms in verse 3 and then down even further with very simple percussion (drum machine?) and acoustic guitar and THEN he repeats "We are one..." three times and when he finally says "tonight" on the third time the song totally opens up. For some reason that moment reminds me a little bit of Chemical Romance’s “Helena”, but that’s neither here nor there. Heavenly vocal BGV rounds screaming out that catchy chorus, and as it fades out John is saying something that I can't quite decipher yet, but I like the feel of the fade out (and I hate fade outs so that's saying something).
I give it a "superb" rating.

"Easier Than Love" is my second favorite song so far I think. I love the playfulness in the verse, offsetting the serious nature of the lyrics. The chorus is full of great, catchy melody, etc. The vamp between the 2nd chorus and the bridge is a little disconnecting. The bridge borders on monotonous, but in the end it proves itself worth listening to as it transitions to the big open instrumenation version of the chorus. The acapella break in that chorus is a nice touch too but the "la-a-a-a" things he does at the end are a little cheesy.
Rating: "Pretty darn good."

Low Point: So I have a lot of emotional philosophies about what makes a good song, and recently I've been able to quantify one of those into words. It's come to my attention that when I'm processing whether or not I like a song for the first time that a good melody is not ALL it takes to make a good song. However, a bad melody is ALL it takes to make a bad song. A melody can be interpreted in my brain as "bad" for a multitude of reasons. The timbre and quality of the singer’s voice can cause that particular opinion. A complete lack of hook will definitely cause it. If there's nothing catchy about a song, well, that's pretty much a killer for me. And fluidity can impact it. If it doesn't flow right, or flows in such a way that annoys, distracts, or makes it difficult for me to sing along, that will impact my thinking too. Now some of you are going to hate me for this, but I think the lowest point on the album I believe is "Lonely Nation". There's almost nothing about this song's music I like. The verses don't go anywhere. And choruses do nothing for me. The thematic, discombobulated, schizophrenic changes in arrangement are too frequent and too close together for my taste and John's "Oh's" after the choruses are annoying to me. So is his screaming. I like the lyrics a lot. I want it to open up or break down, and it does break down a little bit in the bridge, but there's nothing at all interesting about the bridge. It's repetitive, the arrangement is scarce (and not in a good way). It's filled with ambient weird stuff. Then it returns to the break-neck jerky chorus. The outro actually seems to drop in intensity right before it ends, which doesn't feel appropriate. The effect-saturated ending is unique and I give it points for style, but overall, unless it grows on me over time (which has happened with Switchfoot songs in the past) I doubt it's one I'll really attach myself to.
I give it a "disappointing" rating.

"Daisy" is very artsy. Maybe too outré. I appreciate and respect what they're doing because they pulled it off. But I don't think the general public is going to have that level of appreciation for the dissonant chordal patterns and the absence of a solid, stable hook. It's hard for a song like "Daisy" to be catchy because your mind is busy thinking things like, "is that the right chord" or "something doesn't sound right" as it floats in and out of key. Each passage usually resolves to something that works, but for too many brief moments I caught myself thinking something wasn't working with the music.
So right now I'm rating it, "Not sure, ask me again in a week."

"Happy is a Yuppie Word" starts out great. "Yuppie Word" has a good start/stop jerking feel with breaks of decently-flowing music. It's more like what I wished "Lonely Nation" was and could have been. The melody hook is OK. At nearly 5 minutes it's a little long though. Songs like this on previous albums were good, but easier to listen to because they were shorter. I could've done without the whole "Nothing is sound!" redundant bridge lyrics.
I'd describe this song as "not bad".

“Golden" is a good poppy tune, with a decent hook, great arrangement, beautiful harmonies, a wonderful (lyrically and musically) acoustic breakdown at about 1 minute. In fact I like that whole verse. This song is pretty in its simplicity. I didn't think Jon Fields could produce something so bare-bones.
Rating: "Good"

“Politicians" has some good guitar work but it, “The Setting Sun” and “Fatal Wound” all come across as mediocre. Pretty much filler songs.
Ratings: "OK, but nothing to write home about"

"Shadow Proves Sunshine" is really a great song. I can't necessarily put my finger on what exactly I like about it, but it will get 4 stars in my iPod. Good imagery I thought. Plenty of catchiness. I enjoyed where it opened up about half way through too. John's alternate vocal that is a couple octaves higher than the lead, holds my interest well too. This song has a VERY "U2" feel (newer stuff, not older stuff).
Rating: "Not bad, particularly if I'm in the mood for it"

“The Blues” is a superb tune. It does for me what “Dare You to Move” does. The “when the world caves in” tagline is really catchy. Verses are potent and profound in their simplicity but address thought processes we’ve all had from time to time. You hear some clichés but not to a sappy degree or anything. There’s some obvious repetition, maybe more than any other song, but the arrangement and melody are so strong I wouldn’t dare call it redundant.
Rating: “Great stuff”

“Stars” of course has been available as a single for some time now so it hardly seems worth generating a specific review of it. Suffice it to say though,

if you were lucky enough to download the entire album off of iTunes (which I recommend) you got an extra-special acoustic version that’s twice as good as the radio release. There’s a tone of arrangement dynamic present in this song. Guitars bouncing all over the place. No wonder they had to hire another guitarist. What you’d expect from John Fields’ production, frankly. But it was mixed really well to the degree you don’t feel like there’s too much going on, necessarily. Catchiness is there, but not as strong as “We Are One” or “Easier Than Love”. The hook is in the guitar riffs and that’s even more so the case for the acoustic version.
Radio version rating: “Pretty decent”
Acoustic version rating: “Superb”

So how would I describe this album? Well, the individual songs get ratings of pretty darn good, pretty decent, disappointing, not sure, two not bad's, good, OK, great and a pair of superbs. I'd say that stacks up in Switchfoot's favor. Bazooka-Joe definitely recommend this album.

And now Bazooka-Joe is exhausted. Bazooka-joe needs some pasta.

Bazooka-Joe made it so at 3:00 PM

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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Music Review: Switchfoot's "Nothing is Sound"

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