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Monday
- Look deep into the mind’s eye
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Tuesday
- Timmy returns
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Wednesday
- Coldplay in winter 2006
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Thursday
- A-Nile-iate the opposition
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Friday
- Motor Ace call it a day
- Meredith sells out

 

Switchfoot
Nothing is Sound
Columbia

 

Rating: 62%

Bands like Switchfoot are never going to get gobstoppingly amazing reviews; they’re just too ‘standard’ for that. Most of the time, acts like Switchfoot are almost critically ignored – and given the sales that the likes of Switchfoot, Goo Goo Dolls and others have, you imagine they and the record company couldn’t give a damn.

Having started life as a contemporary Christian music act, Switchfoot really broke through with The Beautiful Letdown. They’ve quickly followed it up with Nothing is Sound, an album that takes all the good bits of its predecessor then turns everything up and tweaks everything just so – this is not so much as The Beautiful Letdown Pt. II as it is The Beautiful Letdown plus 3.

It undoubtedly helps that Jon Foreman has something of the everyman to him – he writes songs that strike at universal truths without ever really saying anything. Hey, all he needs to do is marry a British actress and he could be the American Chris Martin! Opener “Lonely Nation” is a driving rocker, while single “Stars” has just the right touch of pop bounce to it backed by solid guitar sounds.

The likes of Lifehouse have been bandied about as a comparison for Switchfoot, but the truth is that this San Diego four-piece is leaps and bounds ahead of that grunge-lite outfit. While the clunky “Happy is a Yuppie Word” completely fluffs it, there’s plenty of lighter-aloft moments on Nothing is Sound. It’s true that Switchfoot don’t pull it off as brilliantly as jimmy eat world (a fellow eight-years-in-the-making overnight success story), they’re nevertheless a solid mainstream modern rock act.


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