Switchfoot - Native Tongues (January 18, 2019) Album • Page 2

Nothing Is Sound is so good. They were really pushing for something on that album.

 

A little about the album and some notes on production and cowrites maybe (not sure what “helped out” means)?
Edit: just read that Brent from One Republic co-wrote the title track.

 

Interesting to read they mention their own album as rock and roll when the first single sounds like it does but I’m hard pressed to like their singles at this point
will take the rest of the songs with a grain of salt for now

 

Can’t get into this at all. I lost them sonically after Vice Verses and this sounds like more of the same

 

Yeah honestly my favorite songs on that album are Thrive, restless, where I belong, souvenirs and vice verses.

I like those other songs fine but they're definitely not the ones I revisit.

 

I can see this doing really well at radio.

 

I need to snag Vice Verses on vinyl such an underrated record. I'd rate it my 3rd favorite behind Hello Hurricane and Oh Gravity.

 

New song is pretty good imo.

 

New song All I Need is up - video premiere later this week.

 

Link to full update.

 

Man, read this yesterday and it hit hard. Praying this gets resolved quickly.

 

Damn. Jerome is such a great guy, really enjoyed chatting with him the few times I’ve been around the band. Hope this does the trick for him.

 

JFH review is up - seems quite harsh and they don't like Let It Happen which I thought was a pretty good track.

 

I happen to like every track they’ve put out so far and LOVE Let It Happen so I’m actually less worried after reading this review. If the released songs really are lower tier tracks, this might end up being my favorite of theirs since Hello Hurricane.

 

I haven't liked anything they've put out in this cycle either. They have totally lost me since Vice Verses

 

JFH seems to give every new SF album 5 stars across the board so maybe this is just balance haha. Although I'd hardly call a 3.5/5 star review harsh.

I think the fact that they wrote some of these songs with the OneRepublic guys clued me in on what type of album this is going to be

 

Ha, yes the scoring isn't too harsh - you are right. But I felt like the tone of the review was clearly more harsh. Almost as though the reviewer felt compelled to give it a higher star rating because it's Switchfoot and, as you say, they often are featured as artist/album of the year at JFH.

Hadn't heard about working with OneRepublic. That is really intriguing.

 

Fuck, what happened to this band? So much of this album just seems like trend chasing. They absolutely crashed off a cliff after Vice Verses. I think they've had like five good songs since then.

 

VV was the beginning of the dive for me, half that album was great and half was very much not so. Only thing I've liked since then has been The Edge of the Earth, which ironically were the Fading West b-sides. Where the Light Shines Through wasn't great but it gave me hope they could still put out something strong for their next album. Now after hearing what I've heard of this so far I don't have any desire to listen to the full thing. Maybe I'll get around to it some day.

 

I think VV is better than half great. There are only 3-4 duds on that album for me, which was pretty much standard operating procedure for them, even in their peak years. Hello Hurricane is the same story. Fading West was super generic, Where the Light Shines Through had a few great songs and a bunch of dull songwriting, and this one just seems like their Imagine Dragons album.

 

That's a great way of describing what I've heard so far haha. Like I said in an above post, they worked with the OneRepublic guys on some of the songs so it very much feels like an attempt to be relevant.

Side note, I also haven't really liked Jon's voice for a few years now, I feel like it really only works for his more world weary solo stuff.

 

There's one song where they basically lifted the entire chorus from a 10-year-old OneRepublic song, so that makes a bit more sense now.

Agreed on Jon's voice, but I think it might be more about the melodies being weak/retreads of things they've done in the past/extremely same-y. I also just don't think he's really got anything to say as a songwriter right now, so that's frustrating. The writing on those solo EPs of his was so good and so dynamic. This album feels very "Christian rock," which I guess is what they are, but is something they used to transcend through their writing

 

I’ll put it on record saying SF was my favorite band for years. My first band I ever loved, even went to the Bro Am and had a blast there but of the 4 songs I’ve heard off this album... I’m not sure I’ll even give this one a listen

Huge fan of his solo stuff but with SF I feel Jon has gotten into a habit of everything sounding the same and/or too rhymey. If I was at my laptop I’d have some examples of what drives me crazy but I bet you guys know what I’m talking about.

Maybe they’re going for the Lowest Common Denominator for a bigger crowd but it sounds bland to me. And even if the message of the songs is good, it doesn’t interest me musically which bums me out

 

I miss how much I used to love them