Summary:
Great album. Has tracks that rock hard as well as tracks that are cool and sober. Between Switchfoot‘s lyrics and music the music is their strong suit. Regardless, the lyrics contain no profanity and are all very uplifting. Highly recommended.
Full Review:
I finally broke down and bought this CD. I put it off as long as I could because I knew it was a Sony product and some Sony CD’s contained the dreaded DRM software that has been in the news so much these days. Thankfully, as I found out from this Sony site, the copy of Nothing Is Sound that I purchased does not contain DRM software. Therefore, if you plan on purchasing this album make sure the copy you get doesn’t have that darned software either.
Music — The song, “Stars,” is probably the most popular from this album because it’s played on most Christian radio stations and some Top 40 stations. It’s fairly representative of the music on this CD. I would say this album is more in the “pop” genre than any other but it does have slight leanings toward the “hard rock” realm. Most of the songs on this album feel like they flip-flop between pop and hard rock. That, to me, is one of the endearing qualities of Switchfoot.
Lyrics — It should be pointed out that Switchfoot’s lyrics don’t contain the theological weight of those of Casting Crowns, Wes King or Chris Rice. Still, they do have notable Christian undertones and some lyrics are outright biblical. One example of such a lyric is from the song, “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine,” and reads “Oh Lord why did you forsake me / Oh Lord don’t be far away, away.” Concerning their lyrics, If you didn’t know this was a Christian band from the beginning their lyrics wouldn’t necessarily tell you that they were. I think this is neither a strength nor a weakness of Switchfoot it’s just a characteristic.
