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Product Description
Product Description
The maxim "the third time's a charm" was surely invented for the latest offering from this San Diego-based surfing trio. After two albums that displayed great promise and potential (1997's debut The Legend of Chin and the follow-up New Way to Be Human), Switchfoot blows down the doors and hits a major sprinter's stride with Learning to Breathe.
This is a brilliant record. Musically it's infinitely inventive-yet much more accessible than previous efforts. Lyrically it's intelligent and poetic-yet more spiritually expressive than previous efforts. What's more, the themes explored are quite global and broad-yet there's still room for personal stories among the 11 songs.
The Foreman brothers-Jonathan on guitar, Tim on bass-and drummer Chad Butler have always excelled instrumentally. In fact, they've always been a bit too good, a mite too progressive and offbeat for wider acceptance. But on Learning to Breathe, Switchfoot manages to retain its inventive, jam-oriented style, in the context of catchy pop hooks and melodies. The very first song, "I Dare You to Move," is about as far from quirky as you can get. It's the kind of sweeping, grand anthem that a band like Delirious would write, complete with a goosebump-inducing vocal chorus that's destined to take up permanent residence inside any number of brains. Next, the title track employs the ethereal-type guitar harmonics that made U2 famous, along with electronic and acoustic drums, combining to create the backdrop for an insightful song about repentance and dependence upon God. "You Already Take Me There," a driving track that borders on grunge metal in the choruses yet showcases Switchfoot's Squeeze-like vocals, continues the aforementioned theme.
The most evocative track on the album, "Love Is the Movement," wins the day with standout elements like the chorus' gospel-tinged vocals and the bass guitar's high-note riffing. The melody ain't bad, either. Switchfoot has more than come into its own with Learning to Breathe. And the band should win a whole new flock of fans because of it. -- Dave Urbanski (c) 2000 CCM Communications, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Switchfoot are a different band to that which I usually listen to - their alternative style, a sort of indie-rock, has developed consistently over their three albums, and 'Learning to Breathe' is a natural progression in the right direction.
The album opener, 'I dare you to move' is the most innovatively constructed song I have heard since Radiohead's OK Computer came out, and sonically the band have moved from a straight indie guitar/bass/drums sound to developing much more atmosphere, with chiming guitar repetitions and swirling noise. The line 'welcome to the fall-out' is met with a deeply satisfying guitar riff the cuts right across the washy atmosphere, and the end of the song reaches an explosive climax. Of all the tracks this is my favourite.
Switchfoot of course are not robots; their fun-loving attitude gets a look-in on tracks like 'Poparazzi', which is a critical study of the showbiz industry, containing a fair impression of Kurt Cobain appearing in the middle 8; The first single from the album, 'You already take me there' is a a three-minute straight-up indie rock-out, with a hilarious sky-diving-goes-wrong video.
Other songs like 'Playing for keeps' and 'the Loser' continue in the same sort of form. Slower songs, such as the title track 'Learning to breathe' is a much more relaxed affair, with a catchy melody. 'The economy of mercy' is another beautiful track, with a chorus remeniscent of Sting's older stuff.
In their bid to be more experimental there are a few songs however that I find less easy to listen to - 'Love is a movement' is a samey kind of song with Gospel type vocal-gymnasts over the top, which is not over-powering, but irritating if you don't like that sort of thing, and 'Erosion' is another heard-it-before number - again, not bad, but samey (and the introduction grates after a while).
But overall this is a refreshing album - I took a chance after hearing the first single, bought it, and I wasn't disappointed. On the whole, the unique sounds, catchy tunes and humerous touches outweigh the few irritating bits by about 10:1 (I only mentioned those to make this review seem more impartial). They are also extremely good live, although most of their gigs are over in America.
The album opener, 'I dare you to move' is the most innovatively constructed song I have heard since Radiohead's OK Computer came out, and sonically the band have moved from a straight indie guitar/bass/drums sound to developing much more atmosphere, with chiming guitar repetitions and swirling noise. The line 'welcome to the fall-out' is met with a deeply satisfying guitar riff the cuts right across the washy atmosphere, and the end of the song reaches an explosive climax. Of all the tracks this is my favourite.
Switchfoot of course are not robots; their fun-loving attitude gets a look-in on tracks like 'Poparazzi', which is a critical study of the showbiz industry, containing a fair impression of Kurt Cobain appearing in the middle 8; The first single from the album, 'You already take me there' is a a three-minute straight-up indie rock-out, with a hilarious sky-diving-goes-wrong video.
Other songs like 'Playing for keeps' and 'the Loser' continue in the same sort of form. Slower songs, such as the title track 'Learning to breathe' is a much more relaxed affair, with a catchy melody. 'The economy of mercy' is another beautiful track, with a chorus remeniscent of Sting's older stuff.
In their bid to be more experimental there are a few songs however that I find less easy to listen to - 'Love is a movement' is a samey kind of song with Gospel type vocal-gymnasts over the top, which is not over-powering, but irritating if you don't like that sort of thing, and 'Erosion' is another heard-it-before number - again, not bad, but samey (and the introduction grates after a while).
But overall this is a refreshing album - I took a chance after hearing the first single, bought it, and I wasn't disappointed. On the whole, the unique sounds, catchy tunes and humerous touches outweigh the few irritating bits by about 10:1 (I only mentioned those to make this review seem more impartial). They are also extremely good live, although most of their gigs are over in America.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I may be spoiled in that i only heard this album after listening to their subsequent offering, The Beautiful Letdown. The reason being that Beautiful Letdown is an amazing album and this one...is just good. It's a good album, it has good tunes, it has good cohesion. The best songs would be Innocence Again, Poparazzi and Love is the Movement made famous by Dawson's Creek. Just make sure you listen to it BEFORE you listen to Beautiful Letdown and know that as much as you like this one, you've only just scratched the surface of what this band can do.
Format:Audio CD
Switchfoot seem to make brilliant albums that each have a feel of their own but are so good in their own way. For me this is on a par with the Beautiful Letdown. There are no bad songs, each one is very different from each other. The version of I Dare You To Move on this is better than on the Beautiful Letdown as it is more bassy. If you like other Switchfoot albums most likely you'll like this as it is reflects their originality as shown in most of their albums. Definitely a CD to buy!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Gr8 Album
This is an excelent album from a extremly good artist with such songs as learning to breath witch are really up lifting
Published on 1 Jan 2002 by andyfosteruk@yahoo.co.uk
Another brilliant album from the amazing Switchfoot
Another example of why Switchfoot are currently in my top 5 bands. Their last 2 albums are constantly in my Cd player and very soon, this one will be aswell. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2000
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