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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Switchfoot [Hello Hurricane], November 10, 2009
Hello Hurricane, Switchfoot's first studio album since 2006's Oh! Gravity, which debuted at No. 18 on The Billboard 200, acknowledges life's storms while managing to find an element of hope in them. The band tracked more than 80 songs at its self-built home studio before narrowing it down to the 12 that appear on the new album. Hello Hurricane is the group's seventh full-length album and its first on Atlantic Records. Switchfoot is comprised of Jon Foreman (vocals/guitar), Tim Foreman (bass), Chad Butler (drums), Jerome Fontamillas (keys/guitar) and Drew Shirley (guitar).
The album grabbed my attention right from the opening notes of "Needle and Haystack Life", which will thrill long-time Switchfoot fans, and probably win them new fans with the U2-esque epic feel and extremely catchy music and lyrics. This is one of those albums that is meant to be experienced in the order it is arranged as lead single "Mess of Me" switches gears musically and brings a new grunge-type sound with the passionate lyrics "I wanna spend the rest of my life alive!". My favorite new Switchfoot song is next, "Your Love Is A Song" in the style of "On Fire" from The Beautiful Letdown. I've enjoyed this band since New Way To Be Human released in 1999 and Hello Hurricane truly brings a great mixture sonically and stylistically that fans of rock anthems, alt-rock and grunge-rock will enjoy. "The Sound" will also have you shouting along with Jon, whose vocals have never sounded better and musically this song reminded me of "Stars" and "We Are One Tonight" from Nothing Is Sound, my previous favorite Switchfoot album. There is little that reminds me of Oh! Gravity, other than maybe the up tempo but more refined sounding rock songs that perfect the sound introduced with the title track and "Awakening".
Some other highlights for me come towards the end of the album, which cools down with "Always", a truly inspirational song in the style of "Twenty-Four" with this great bridge: "Hallelujah!, I'm caving in, Hallelujah! I'm in love again, Hallelujah!, I'm a wretched man, Hallelujah!, every breath is a second chance". "Always" transitions beautifully to "Bullet Soul", another Switchfoot anthem which will have you moving with a great guitar riff and a call to action "are you ready to go?". As if the album didn't have enough hooks, my next favorite track comes next with the ballad "Yet" a gorgeous contemplative song with a sincere chorus: "I'll sing until my heart caves in, no, you haven't lost me yet".
I find myself singing at the top of my lungs with each song and "Your Love Is A Song" is one of my top 20 songs of the year. For me, Hello Hurricane is now the best overall album by Switchfoot and is one of my top 5 albums of 2009. The standout songs are "Needle and Haystack Life", "Mess of Me", "Your Love Is A Song", "The Sound", "Always", "Bullet Soul" and "Yet".
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sonically Solid, November 17, 2009
Switchfoot's Hello Hurricane, like most of their albums, takes multiple listens to truly enjoy. Up front, the music sounds good, but once you dive deeper into the lyrics and the melodies you realize how amazing and honest the album actually is. Whether it's edgy and aggressive, or soft and contemplative, all of the songs fit well with each other. There are subtle hints of spirituality in the lyrics, especially on Free and Always. This album offers a message of hope in difficult times. If I had any gripe about this record, it would be ending the album on a somewhat somber tone. Yet and Sing It Out are both beautifully executed ballads, and Red Eyes slightly picks up the tempo to close out the album, but I am ultimately left wanting some more songs with the same aggressiveness as Mess of Me or The Sound. Having wrote 80 songs, and recorded 40 of them, I don't think it would have been too much a problem to pick another rocker to fit in with this album. Either way, this is an overall solid effort from a great band.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Switchfoot- Hello Hurricane [crobsession.tumblr.com] [crobsession.blogspot.com], November 11, 2009
Ever since Switchfoot announced late last year that they would be working on their seventh full-length album, the hype has been slowly building. More recently they've been featured on YouTube's homepage and even a Blackberry commercial. But the road to where they are today wasn't easy. With nearly a hundred songs to choose from for an album that would join a catalogue of a few highly impressive past albums, the pressure was on. That's just one of the hurricanes that hit them during the making of the album. But Switchfoot survived to tell the world that love is a fortress that can survive any hurricane, which is the theme of the newest effort from the band, aptly titled Hello Hurricane.
Before I get started with this review, there's something that Jon Foreman--the lead vocalist of Switchfoot, also known for his solo project and work in Fiction Family--said about Hello Hurricane that I really agree with. This album is not one that you can listen to and enjoy and not know a single thing about the story behind the music. Each individual song has a unique message about love and hope that has really touched me. That's one great thing about this album. Rarely do you find music with this much meaning put into it. Looking through the tracklist, I can't think of a single song that--while reading Foreman's commentary on--I didn't have a "wow" moment during, whether I said it in my head or out loud. This album has made an impact on me like none this year. And so that you can experience this album the same way that I did, head over to Jesus Freak Hideout's song lyrics database and look up Switchfoot's Hello Hurricane to read the commentaries provided by Jon Foreman. Sure it's a lot of reading material, but it is well worth your time.
Having nearly a hundred songs to work with for Hello Hurricane might have seemed a bit overwhelming for the band, but you can bet they had plenty of good ones to choose from. Some bands go into the studio and do all of their writing at that time--Switchfoot is obviously not one of those bands. So to be able to work with and experiment to see which of these tracks would be the absolute best for the album, the guys in Switchfoot built their own studio so that they could take their time picking through each song. I can tell you now that all of their work payed off. With the exception of the final track, "Red Eyes," which didn't really catch on for me, there is not a single track that I would be able to overlook when listening to the entire album.
The song-writing, as usual, is strong. Without a doubt strong enough to withstand a hurricane. Jon Foreman is a master of song-writing, made evident most recently by the work put into his solo projects. Switchfoot's lyrics separate them from the mediocre song-writing that is found so often in our day and age. Songs like "Your Love Is A Song," "Enough to Let Me Go," "Always," and "Sing it Out," are some of the best. For those looking for the fun rock style of Switchfoot's biggest hits, I think the phenomenal lyrical content of this album might make up for what it lack in heaviness. Of course, you do have tracks like "Mess of Me," "The Sound (John M. Perkin's Blues)," "Hello Hurricane," and "Bullet Soul," that you can still have a great time listening to. And that isn't to say that all of the slower-paced tracks don't sound any good. Quite the opposite--they sound fantastic. Switchfoot is not your average group of guys--to go with the great song-writing, their musical genius is without a doubt some of the best in the industry. Switchfoot could take on any genre, and I'm positive it would sound great. The perfect combination of exceptional lyricism and music makes Switchfoot such an exceptional band.
From the chorus of "Needle and Haystack Life," you know you're in for something good. Foreman sings, "In this needle and haystack life/I've found miracles there in your eyes/It's no accident we're here tonight/We are once in a lifetime." The lead single off the album "Mess of Me" has really distorted electric guitars that create a unique sound. The same sound is used again in a few latter tracks, giving them a fun style that isn't like every other rock song on the radio. "Your Love is a Song" is a beautiful song, one of the strongest on the album. It's a great metaphor of God's love and a fantastic worship song. Foreman's vocals sound almost perfect on this track, and the instrumentals are moving. "The Sound" breaks the calm that was set by the previous track. From the start, you know it's destined to gain popularity. Already, millions of people have heard it through the newest Blackberry Storm 2 commercial. It's great that a Christian band can display their music to such a wide audience. And Hello Hurricane is not overly oblique about God being a huge part of these guys' lives, so I'm sure they're planting a seed in plenty of people's hearts. "Enough to Let Me Go" is a song that, again, talks about love, but this time talks about how it is not selfish. The acoustic sound that the song carries is great. "Free" is a darker song that asks God to free us from ourselves, kind of like the same idea as "Mess of Me."
There are a lot of recurring themes throughout Hello Hurricane. Sometimes that could be a bad thing. For example, there are albums that have songs again and again that talk about some breakup or bad relationship. But the topic of God's love and asking to be saved from the hurricanes that plague our lives can never get old. And, frankly, I don't think it's a topic that's talked about enough. We hear about worldly love all the time, but God's love is just so much more powerful.
The title track is another fun one, singing "Hello hurricane, you're not enough/Hello hurricane, you can't silence my love/I've got doors and windows boarded up/All your dead end fury is not enough/You can't silence my love." "Always" is another beautiful song, following in the steps of "Your Love is a Song." Another highlight that uses great metaphors to describe God's love for his children. It compares a father's love for his newborn son to God's love for us: "I am always yours." "Bullet Soul" is an instant classic, using the same distorted guitars in "Mess of Me." It's one that you'll find yourself singing along to involuntarily. It would definitely be something to look forward to at a Switchfoot concert. "Yet" is another awesome ballad, about looking for hope. "Sing It Out" is one of the best on the album--one more worship track. The bridge sings, "I'm holding on/I'm holding on to you/My world is wrong/My world is a lie that's come true/And I fall in love with those that run me through/When all I need is You." The music that accompanies the already amazing lyrics has some deep meaning behind it. According to Foreman, "The song is singing about itself--struggling for melody, for life, for meaning. Singing about rebirth, the song spends most of its time in the grave and comes to a bright, glorious finish, held out until the very end. To match the lyric we saved almost every instrument for the end of the song." I think that's pretty cool. The only song on the album that I couldn't really connect with was the finale, "Red Eyes." It ends with a reprise of "Needle and Haystack Life" which is kind of interesting to hear at the beginning and end of the album. But still there wasn't much for me to like about it. But that doesn't in any way change the album as a whole.
Hello Hurricane is one of the most brilliant, well-written albums to come along this year. Foreman and crew have managed another beautiful effort to add to their other successful albums. It's great that people will be hearing about God through their music. There's so much to learn from Hello Hurricane about how God's love can defeat any hurricane that comes against us. Expert song-writing and unbelievable instrumentals make this seventh album an epic one, ready to be loved by all who enjoy Christian rock.
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