{"id":40950,"date":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/learning-to-breathe\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","slug":"learning-to-breathe","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/learning-to-breathe\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning To Breathe"},"content":{"rendered":"

With apologies to Jason Warburg, Switchfoot\u2019s near-perfect review record<\/a> on the Daily Vault is over. Learning To Breathe<\/i>, the group\u2019s final foray in CCM before hitting mainstream success with 2003\u2019s The Beautiful Letdown<\/i>, delivers signs of things to come, but is definitely an album by a band still in need of musical maturation and is by no means perfect. That said, it\u2019s not a half bad piece of work.<\/p>\n

For starters, Jon Foreman and the crew begin in style with \u201cI Dare You To Move,\u201d a song that, when included again on their next album, would top the mainstream musical charts. Virtually a carbon copy of the recording many are more familiar with from The Beautiful Letdown<\/i>, it remains interesting to hear the less tested Foreman vocals. This song was a hit for a reason, and as an opener to this album, it definitely does not disappoint.<\/p>\n

The album certainly comes down from the mountaintop after such a strong opening track, but by no means is the rest garbage. Songs like \u201cLearning To Breathe\u201d and \u201cThe Economy of Mercy\u201d reveal the lyrical greatness soon to become commonplace for Switchfoot, with beautiful melodies to match.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s as-yet-untapped potential is most obvious in my favorite tracks, \u201cLove Is The Movement\u201d and \u201cYou Already Take Me There.\u201d Here the band seems desperate to deliver a deep message behind thunderous guitars, and succeeds for the most part \u2013 yet you can\u2019t help but think something is missing. That something in intangible and unidentifiable, but it\u2019s impossible to shake the feeling that you\u2019re not hearing the songs at 100%.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s recognizable charm and humor is present in \u201cPoparazzi,\u201d a ditty about the hounds and groupies trailing bands from Nirvana to Switchfoot themselves. Foreman\u2019s lyrics are biting, but he manages to convince you nonetheless that he means it all in good fun, and you leave the song with a smile.<\/p>\n

The rest of the disc is really what distinguishes it from later releases from the more evolved Switchfoot of the 2000s \u2013 it\u2019s forgettable. None of the songs bring anything particularly fresh to the table, and while none of them are poor, all are mediocre. This is the difference between Learning To Breathe\u00ad<\/i>-era Switchfoot and the band I love today. On modern releases by the band, no song is dispensable; every single one is vital to the structure and integrity of the album. I rarely skip songs on new Switchfoot albums, but I think you will find yourself doing so during slower portions of Learning To Breathe<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This album is a good effort, really, and remains a better CCM album than most of the material put out in the late \u201890s. However, when stood up against what the band would later put out, it lacks staying power. Learning To Breathe<\/i> shows a band in transition, and with the musical peaks come also the valleys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":29379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7886],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40950","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-switchfoot","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40950"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}