When the World Caves In

Switchfoot broke onto the scene last year with their post-grunge anthems like Meant to Live, Dare You to Breathe, and This Is Your Life off the album, The Beautiful Letdown. Both songs were built around crushing guitars and lyrics that took aim at the complacency of their generation. Not too mention the lead singer wasn’t scared of not hitting every note. The band quickly followed up their success with last week’s release of their follow-up, Nothing Is Sound.

On the album, the band doesn’t stray from what gained them airplay last year with an emphasis on the guitars but this sometimes leads to some paint-by-numbers rock songs such as Golden and We Are Tonight. Disturbingly, the opening to The Setting Sun sounds a lot like the opening to the new Ashlee Simpson song, Boyfriend. When the band tries to slow things down, the results are varied where Shadow Proves the Sunshine and The Blues can be passed over easily but the closer Daisy is worth the listen.

Nothing Is Sound starts off where they left off on Lonely Nation by taking shots of their generation and those who market them, “We are the target market, we set the corporate target, we are slaves of what we want.” More shot at the marketer come later with lyrics like, “Sex is currency, she sells cars, she sells magazines” on Easier Than Love. The band doesn’t reserve the blame to their generation as they take on the previous ones too with Happy Is a Yuppie Word. Our public leaders are not safe from Switchfoot’s wrath either on Politician, “A pledge allegiance to a country without borders, without politicians.” I’m not sure if that is a place I’d like to live.

Song to Download – Daisy

Nothing Is Sound gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.