Switchfoot - Vice Verses Review
Posted by Wyatt E. on 09.30.2011
Wyatt E. checks in with his full review of the new release from Switchfoot. Has an indie label been kind to the Christian rockers, or..... has it not been?
"That Switchfoot lyric you were trying to figure out 8 years ago? It was 'we want more than the wars of our fathers.' Sorry about the wait."
- text I sent to my brother about the song "Meant To Live" while researching who the hell Switchfoot are.
"...oh, THEM."
- me hearing "Dare You To Move" for the first time in several years.
"TODAY'S MUSIC AIN'T GOT THE SAME SOUL / I LIKE THAT OLD TIME ROCK & ROLL"
- Bob Seger inventing the Youtube comment.
1. Afterlife – 3:37
2. The Original - 3:15
3. The War Inside - 3:39
4. Restless - 5:18
5. Blinding Light - 4:17
6. Selling the News - 3:35
7. Thrive - 5:12
8. Dark Horses - 3:54
9. Souvenirs - 4:15
10. Rise Above It - 3:33
11. Vice Verses - 5:08
12. Where I Belong - 6:53
You know, I may jest, and you may jest, and I may get frustrated with endless homogenization via pop radio stations and sound like a total hipster in the process, but in the end, I could not look you in the eye and tell you that any one genre or subgenre is inherently crap. Not for a single one. Even pure noise music, like Merzbow, surely has some sort of perverse fascination in its own textures (worth checking out, by the way, if only for trivia's sake - dude's probably the least musical musician of all time) (oh, sorry, review).
Which brings me to post-grunge. Post-grunge is what it is - a watered down version of grunge simply because the aesthetics are appealing, but the guys playing it aren't emotionally disturbed burnouts, they're just blue-collar boys that wanna be rock stars. I don't see anything wrong with that by design, but the problem comes when the guys act like immense douchewaffles about it and sing about demeaning women and excess. Then the radio gets flooded with Theory of a Deadmans and Hinders and they-who-shall-not-be-named. I do hate to see a few jackasses get together and help ruin an entire subgenre for already jaded music fans. I could make a similar case for Christian rock. There's always a few bad apples.
Of course, this leads me to Switchfoot, who have been toiling away since the late 1990s and who have been branded by both of those titles. For those unfamiliar, you probably remember the song "Dare You To Move," which was a radio hit in 2003, and, despite it being a little formula, a good song. Really, for what they do, they're perfectly serviceable. Even when the guitars crunch, the band keep things light & breezy, playing everything straight-faced, and wallowing in convention, not cliches. Points should be awarded where it's due - the band's Christian content is rarely cloying, and they prefer to keep their subject matter rooted in finding happiness and seeking answers to life's questions. It's not douchey! Really!
On the other hand, it's not all that dynamic, either. They've had little stylistic workouts here and there, and some ballads, and some tinkering with production, and that's all well and good, but Switchfoot never seemed to rise above a fun diversion on FM radio. The band seemed to be lost in the shuffle, where more charismatic bands with bigger, shinier gimmicks passed through the charts with much more fanfare. That's unlikely to change much, now that the band finds themselves on an indie label, but the question is what a band like Switchfoot would do given the opportunity to stand on their own. As Vice Verses showcases, the same old thing.
The boys process the guitars a little extra heavy this time, and tighten up the production electronically - the band have never really been afraid to adorn their music with modern tweaks. "The War Inside" is an example. Singer Jon Foreman flattens his vocals down to a monotone, and the music inches along to a rigid drum machine. This doesn't really enhance the song much, and the last thing a band like Switchfoot needs is to sound more generic. It works well enough when they have strong material. Vice Verses isn't exactly what anyone but diehards would call strong - tipped off by opening track "Afterlife" where they feel the need to cop the riff from Motörhead's theme song for Triple H.
"Dark Horses," one of the two lead singles from Vice Verses, is as obvious a single choice as there could be, standing out easily with a riff so processed and overdubbed it sounds like it was produced by robots (no, not those robots). Also, it's one of my absolute favorite rock cliches: the We Are song. The chorus is a jubilant yell of "Hey, you can't count us out! / We've been living up against the crowd, yeah / We are the dark horses!" It's not hard to pull one of these songs off - songs that act as rallying cries are usually excellent fodder for airtime, but the song's riff - like much of the rest of the album - is simple to a fault, never really standing out and making itself known. It's not bad, but I'll put it this way - when 30 Seconds to Mars pulls off a rock cliche better than you, you might need a little fine tuning. One other notable track - "Selling The News" is a Piss-Take Rap ranting and raving about the exploitation of Hollywood and media ("opinions are easier to swallow than facts"). Good points and all, but the sound of the lead singer of Switchfoot attempting this is a little unwieldy, and borderline funny. Still, it's a big standout here.
Typically for Switchfoot, the lyrics prefer to be optimistic and idealistic, while keeping an element of realism. Here, it proves to be a bit of a gaffe, as songs like "Blinding Light," with boring lyrics like "I've been living in the darkest night / Still looking for the blinding light to take me higher and higher" cross the line from simple to totally nondescript. Rather than spiritual, the lyrics come off naive, and it's just one more factor that leads to the record's undoing. This is the sound of a band that aren't very good as hiding the fact that they don't have too much to say.
The 411: Switchfoot, like I said, is a perfectly competent band who escape a lot of post-grunge trappings. This would be refreshing, if they hadn't ultimately found themselves in new ones. A decided lack of inspiration diminishes much of the band's impact, combined with production that tends to dehumanize rather than accentuate. But Mr. Foreman puts it best himself on "Afterlife" - "Cuz every day, the world is made a chance to change, but I feel the same and I wonder why." Vice Verses is for longtime fans only.
