Ah, yes: the awkward sophomore album, in which our protagonists take a leap forward from their raw freshman outing, but haven\u2019t quite found their footing with all the new tools and toys they\u2019re trying to employ in their music. A familiar tale, told again with Switchfoot\u2019s appealing yet flawed second album New Way To Be Human<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Sincerity is something this band has never lacked, and this album is rich with it. Singer\/guitarist Jon Foreman\u2019s philosophical, spiritually-minded songwriting has also improved from their 1997 debut The Legend Of Chin<\/i>, and the sonic palette that he, his brother Tim (bass and background vocals), and Chad Butler (drums and percussion) are using to tell their stories is suddenly much broader, embracing loops and synth textures, horns and strings.<\/p>\n
Three tracks form the heart of this album. First is the kickoff title track, a festival of sonic experimentation tucked into a tight, almost slick alt-rock single format. The hook and chorus are simply inescapable, and while the kitchen-sink approach to production feels a bit overcooked in places, the end result is an interesting, heady mix between straight-up heavy rock and experimental pop. <\/p>\n
The second key song is \u201cCompany Car,\u201d the clear highlight of this album. The soul-sucking emptiness of materialism and economic competition is a theme Foreman would return to again and again in later compositions like \u201cLonely Nation\u201d and \u201cAmerican Dream.\u201d But those songs are expansive anthems; the poppier \u201cCompany Car\u201d instead focuses in on the dynamics between two everyday, instantly recognizable characters, the unnamed narrator and his work-buddy Mike, competitors in a race up the ladder that\u2019s dragging them both down: \u201cAs time rolls by my dreams have become \/ That which is attainable\u2026 I\u2019ve become one with the ones \/ That I\u2019ve never believed in… I\u2019m the king of things I\u2019ve always despised.\u201d And, finally: \u201cWe\u2019re the faceless combatants in the loneliest game.\u201d It\u2019s an anti-materialist rant you can sing along to. <\/p>\n
The rest of the guts of this album is a bit of a mish-mash. Tunes like \u201cSooner Or Later\u201d and \u201cI Turn Everything Over\u201d offer interesting flourishes on the production side, but don\u2019t ignite otherwise. \u201cOnly Hope\u201d is quite pretty, but feels less like a Switchfoot song than like the sort of more overt \u201cworship\u201d song that has ended up on Jon Foreman\u2019s solo records in recent years. And then there\u2019s \u201cSomething More (Augustine\u2019s Confession),\u201d a combination scriptural exegesis and pop song that\u2019s surprisingly appealing, at that.<\/p>\n
The third key moment arrives, ironically, after the album proper has ended. The little hidden track at the end is a doo-woppy studio snippet that gives you a clear sense of the playfulness that is one of Switchfoot\u2019s most appealing qualities. Yes, they\u2019re very serious much of the time, but they have a fun-loving side as well.<\/p>\n
New Way To Be Human<\/i> was a step forward for a band still finding its way, a move toward tighter songwriting, bigger themes, and the sort of restless sonic experimentation that continues to keep Switchfoot\u2019s sound fresh today. It\u2019s not a great album by any means, but it\u2019s solid and sincere, and in \u201cCompany Car,\u201d contains at least one excellent song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7886],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42766","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\/42766","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42766"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}