Switchfoot - "Hello Hurricane"

[dgp11776]

Releasing September/October, produced by Switchfoot, Mike Elizondo, and Darrell Thorp.

Tracklist
1. "Needle And Haystack Life"
2. "Mess Of Me"
3. "Your Love Is A Song"
4. "The Sound (John M. Perkins Blues)"
5. "Enough To Let Me Go"
6. "Free"
7. "Hello Hurricane"
8. "Always"
9. "Bullet Soul"
10. "Yet"
11. "Sing It Out"
12. "Red Eyes"

Two new songs on Youtube:
"Mess of Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxJRAH5zMww

"Bullet Soul"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JOp9SGKi9k

I'm liking both of these new songs, especially "Bullet Soul."

[Ian]

I'll probably enjoy it, but those two songs don't make it sound as though Switchfoot is really pushing forward at all, and it's getting pretty stale.

[dgp11776]

Album artwork is up at www.switchfoot.com as well as pre-order options (although pre-ordering won't start until August).  Vinyl + digital download for me! 

[murlough23]

I'll probably enjoy it, but those two songs don't make it sound as though Switchfoot is really pushing forward at all, and it's getting pretty stale.

Every time a new Switchfoot album comes out, my initial reaction is that they've been there done that (I even thought that about TBL, feeling the lyrics were too similar to LTB), but then the new songs end up being so infectious that I end up not caring. So I probably shouldn't judge until I've heard the new CD several times. However, repetitive lyrical themes are what's kept me from giving the highest grade to their post-TBL material.

[Josh]

Yeah; there's gotta be something more to this new album.

[murlough23]

Yeah; there's gotta be something more to this new album.

Foreman's explored interesting subject matter on his own and with Fiction Family, so this isn't an unreasonable expectation.

[Josh]

Agreed. (But did you catch my pun?)

[murlough23]

Agreed. (But did you catch my pun?)

Yeah, never heard that one before! 

[Ian]

Yeah; there's gotta be something more to this new album.

Judging from those two youtube vids I wouldn't get your hopes up...

[murlough23]

Judging from those two youtube vids I wouldn't get your hopes up...

They didn't sound horrible to me, or even average. They sounded good - nothing shockingly new for Switchfoot, but it doesn't sound like they're going downhill or anything.

That said, there was nothing quite like the experience of hearing "Dirty Second Hands" for the first time, and that being my introduction to an upcoming album. That song was a quantum leap forward, and while the rest of Oh! Gravity was pretty good, it didn't match that song's potential.

NP: "Wayward One", Alter Bridge

[Ian]

I meant in terms of lyrical content.  Although the sound isn't really anything new either.

[murlough23]

I meant in terms of lyrical content.  Although the sound isn't really anything new either.

I was taking both aspects into account.

[eatenbytehworms]

http://www.yourmusiczone.com/go/ymz/news_more/switchfoot_hello_hurricane_song_stories_part_i/
http://www.yourmusiczone.com/go/ymz/news_m...tories_part_ii/
http://www.yourmusiczone.com/go/ymz/news_m...ories_part_iii/

it's a lot to read, yeah

having read the new album's lyrics, which were posted online by jon somewhere, i'd say the lyrics don't just stick to usual "more to life" thing (though it does pop up every now and then).

[dgp11776]

"Free," "The Sound," and "Bullet Soul" immediately land in my "favorite Switchfoot songs" list.

[NinjaRob17]

Man, listening to The Sound right now, great stuff. Definitely agree with you on this dgp.

[worldofcm]

I'm enjoying this album.

[spacebrat311]

I'm not.

[dgp11776]

I'm not.

Which is probably why I am.

[Brenden]

Listened to a couple songs, sounds good, haven't had a chance to give it much time yet.

[murlough23]

Which is probably why I am.

Some of us are actually on board with what the band is trying to do now, instead of holding out ridiculous expectations that they'll go back to revisit a debut album that is more than ten years old and honestly not even close to their best work in the first place.

[dgp11776]

I think I might end up with bloop on this one - this could be their best album.

[plvarona]

Listened to a couple songs, sounds good, haven't had a chance to give it much time yet.

That's my initial impression as well.  I'll have to listen to it a few more times to see where it ranks within their discography, but after one listen-through, I like what I hear.

[murlough23]

I just listened to it for the first time today. I can definitely tell I'll need to give it some time. I made the mistake of reviewing O!G right after it was released (to get the review in before the end of the year so I could link to it from my annual Top 20 list), and I think I wrote off some of its songs too quickly as a repetition of past ideas, when they would later turn out to be some of my favorites. Listening to this one, I hear some musical ideas that are different for Switchfoot, but nothing immediately groundbreaking that makes me go "Wow, that's just COOL." The lyrics also don't strike me as the same old same old, but I'll need further listens to really dig into 'em. So my initial impressions are positive, but I can tell this is a record that's designed to sink in more than it is to become an immediate favorite.

[murlough23]

I've been through this album a few more times now; still haven't made up my mind where it sits in the ranking of Switchfoot albums, but it doesn't sound like it'll become my favorite (that's still Learning to Breathe), nor will it become my least favorite (that's still New Way to Be Human). I hear some new things that they tried (particularly with Foreman's voice), some of which will piss off the people who just want sloppy garage rock, and some of which will piss off the people who want happy lovey-dovey soundtrack music and/or CCM hits. It's different enough from past albums to stand on its own, but not quite unified enough to feel like every song is essential. Long story short, it's a good album that could have been better, but any disappointment I might feel isn't the same disappointment I felt upon listening to their last two albums and realizing that not much had changed on a thematic level.

Oh, by the way:





Just sayin'.

[Aaron]

album covers - merely a coincidence, I say.

[murlough23]

album covers - merely a coincidence, I say.

Yeah, there's no obvious plagiarism there. The color scheme and pattern were just eerily similar.

[murlough23]

Why am I having such a difficult time getting into this record? I like the sound of it, but several of the individual songs seem to be a bit lacking. I'm leaning toward putting this below all of their other albums from this decade, only putting it above Chin and Human. That still means a B or B-, so it's not a massive disappointment, but Switchfoot has definitely done better.

I'm a huge fan of "Mess of Me" and "The Sound" and a handful of other songs, though.

[Aaron]

Chin is worse to you than NIS and OG?  Them fightin words! 

[murlough23]

Chin is worse to you than NIS and OG?  Them fightin words! 

"Worse" implies that it's bad in the first place. It's not. Flawed, perhaps, but by reaction is still more positive than negative. (Which is true for all of their albums; New Way to Be Human is just the most annoyingly inconsistent of the bunch.) I'd probably give Chin a higher grade if some of the slower songs didn't drag on and on. There might also be one or two where the dissonance gets on my nerves a bit, and I remember listening to that album after TBL came out and thinking, "This was an interesting approach, but they've learned how to do it better since then." There are some other tracks that are "messy", but that I still enjoy a great deal, like "Bomb", so my problem with that record isn't a lack of poppiness or something.

NIS and OG suffer from a few weak tracks in their respective back halves, but aside from that, I think both records are solid. I enjoy the musical style of those records the most out of any of Switchfoot albums, even if I think TBL is the most consistent song-for-song and LTB probably has the best songwriting.

NP: "Kid Innocence", Olivia the Band

[Aaron]

NIS and OG are too inconsistent, IMO.  If they had just taken the bright spots from both albums and combined them, they could have had a perfect album.

[murlough23]

NIS and OG are too inconsistent, IMO.  If they had just taken the bright spots from both albums and combined them, they could have had a perfect album.

This pretty much comes down to how much we enjoy individual songs, and it make sense that this varies for each person. It sounds like you're not saying they committed some grave error by not making the newer albums sound like (Chin, TBL, insert purportedly perfect past album here), which is a relief. Because that's the criticism that frustrates me. I may not be over the moon for Hello Hurricane, but I didn't want a copy of an earlier album.

[Ian]

Chin is generally too different to compare to anything post TBL, but if forced to rank them, I would probably have them something like this:  TBL > NiS > LtB > Chin > HH > O!G > NWtBH.  The last three I could really care less about the order.

[murlough23]

I'm gonna say TBL > O!G > NIS > LTB > HH > TLOC > NWTBH.

[spacebrat311]

This pretty much comes down to how much we enjoy individual songs, and it make sense that this varies for each person. It sounds like you're not saying they committed some grave error by not making the newer albums sound like (Chin, TBL, insert purportedly perfect past album here), which is a relief. Because that's the criticism that frustrates me. I may not be over the moon for Hello Hurricane, but I didn't want a copy of an earlier album.

As one often accused of this position, it's not that I wanted them to continue sounding like Chin. I would have been perfectly happy with them going any number of different directions (as I've said before, Dirty Second Hands is a wonderful song, and I'd love to hear more like it) but have been largely unhappy with the direction they did pick.

My order: TLOC>NWTBH>>>>LTB>NIS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>TBL>O!G>HH

[worldofcm]

Ya'll must be listening to a different album than me - cause to me, this is their best album post LTB.

LTB>HH>TBL>O!G>NIS>TLoC>NWTBH

[murlough23]

Ya'll must be listening to a different album than me

So sick of people saying that. It's the same recording. Just because we don't react the same doesn't mean we're not paying attention.

[dgp11776]

There is obviously a wide range of opinions on this one.  So, I'll add to the confusion.

1.  Hello Hurricane
2.  The Beautiful Letdown
3.  Oh! Gravity
4.  Learning to Breathe
5.  Nothing Is Sound
6.  The Legend of Chin
7.  A New Way To Be Human

[ajyouthguy]

i haven't had time to fully process it, but for now, i'd probably put it at #2 behind TBL

[Brenden]

Personally, I have to say I like this album more than the last two.

[Ian]

So sick of people saying that. It's the same recording. Just because we don't react the same doesn't mean we're not paying attention.

...don't think the phrase is meant to be taken literally