If Switchfoot and I were a couple, our relationship status on Facebook right now would be \u201cIt\u2019s complicated.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 2005 the earnest San Diego quintet made an album (Nothing Is Sound<\/i><\/a>) that still ranks among my favorite releases of the last 20 years. Before and since, they\u2019ve made album after album full of sharp-eyed, full-hearted, dynamic compositions that explore spiritual and philosophical concerns without ever locking the band, or their audience, inside a strictly Christian framework. It\u2019s a delicate tightrope walk that they have navigated with admirable grace.<\/p>\n Beyond their spiritual bent, the other characteristic that\u2019s been true of Switchfoot\u2014Jonathan Foreman (vocals & guitar), Tim Foreman (bass), Chad Butler (drums), Jerome Fontamillas (keys) and Drew Shirley (guitar)\u2014from the beginning is a creative restlessness, a desire to continually push boundaries and evolve their musical identity. Since Nothing Is Sound<\/i>, the quintet has veered back and forth between immediacy and slickness, straightforward approaches and experimentation, from album to album and track to track. <\/p>\n The point where things began to unravel between me and a band I still admire a great deal was with 2014\u2019s Fading West<\/i><\/a>. Not because of the songs themselves, which have always been, and continue to be, dynamic, smartly crafted and full of heart\u2014but because Fading West<\/i> saw the group embrace a sleek, gimmicky, highly commercial production approach that stunted the impact of the guitars and trapped Jon Foreman\u2019s magnificently human voice behind a screen of filters and auto-tune. <\/p>\n The fact that the band parted ways with Fading West<\/i> producer Neal Avron prior to recording this album gave me hope initially. But although Where The Light Shines Through<\/i> was co-produced by the band with John Fields, who was at the boards for three of the band\u2019s strongest albums (The Beautiful Letdown<\/i>, Nothing Is Sound<\/i>, and Oh! Gravity<\/i>), they\u2019ve unfortunately retained many of the most off-putting aspects of Fading West<\/i>\u2019s sound. From the top, both the rather heavy-handed opening anthem \u201cHoly Water\u201d and the otherwise catchy white-soul number \u201cFloat\u201d suffer under the weight of overbearing, filtered-tweaked-and-reverbed-to-infinity production. <\/p>\n Batting third, the title track is a clear highlight here, a punchy mid-tempo blues that frames an inspirational message inside a stripped-down late-Beatles arrangement and keeps the irritating production tricks to a minimum. (Sidebar: It was also interesting, having just finished Sylvie Simmons\u2019 terrific biography I\u2019m Your Man: The Life Of Leonard Cohen<\/i><\/a>, to note the parallels between this song\u2019s central idea\u2014\u201cYour wounds are where the light shines through\u201d\u2014and Cohen\u2019s \u201cAnthem,\u201d where he famously sings \u201cThere is a crack in everything \/ That’s how the light gets in.\u201d Cohen is another songwriter who has managed to incorporate spiritual themes in much of his work without ever pretending to have all the answers; he just keeps finding new ways to ask the questions.)<\/p>\n \u201cI Won\u2019t Let You Go\u201d is another strong number, a moving ballad of devotion and reassurance; the human imperfections you hear in Foreman\u2019s vocals on the verses are exactly what makes this song work as well as it does. As if to underscore this point, the very next song, the brawny \u201cIf The House Burns Down Tonight,\u201d undercuts a potent anti-materialism message (\u201cYou possess your possessions or they possess you\u201d) with a wall of sheen.<\/p>\n Moving on: the playful \u201cBull In A China Shop\u201d is an energetic, semi-rapped number with some nasty-sweet blues licks on the breaks. \u201cHealer Of Souls\u201d is a similarly frisky cut with muscular guitars and rhythm section\u2014so why mess up a good thing by masking the vocals? The explicitly spiritual \u201cThe Day That I Found God\u201d feels like it might be more at home on a Foreman solo album; \u201cShake This Feeling\u201d collapses under the weight of its over-the-top production; and while \u201cLive It Well\u201d and \u201cHope Is The Anthem\u201d are solid enough, they also both feel a little familiar, like rewrites of previous Switchfoot songs. <\/p>\n \u201cLooking For America\u201d is another one with familiar elements, merging the themes of \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d from 2006\u2019s Oh! Gravity<\/i> with the rap attack of \u201cSelling The News\u201d from 2011\u2019s Vice Verses<\/i>, while adding Lecrae to the mix. That said, the message is powerful\u2014\u201cDo away with your ignorance and arrogance \/ America the land of immigrants\u201d\u2014and laconic surfer-dude Foreman and rapper Lecrae are more musically compatible than you might expect. In the end I respect this track more than I love it, but it\u2019s definitely a strong statement. <\/p>\n