Switchfoot - Where the Light Shines Through (2016)
The questions most bands begin to encounter at this point in their career are those of legacy and relevance. At the same time as maintaining the reputation and fanbase they've built over through their music, they typically also want to remain musically relevant and not just make new music for the sake of new music. The problem with doing the latter is it can tend to alienate the longtime fans because changes to a band's fundamental sound are jarring, especially when people have grown up with a very particular sonic image in their minds.
This describes my experiences with Switchfoot perfectly. I grew up with albums like The Beautiful Letdown and Nothing Is Sound dominating my listening time to a ridiculous extent at times. The sound of those albums (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Hello Hurricane and Vice Verses) was (and still mostly is) incredibly attractive to my ears. On the other hand, as Switchfoot has changed their sound, in particular with their last album Fading West, I haven't migrated with them. They got lighter and more universally inoffensive to a point where I didn't want to listen to them a whole lot anymore.
This is where Where the Light Shines Through comes in. A sizable portion of listeners didn't care for Fading West because it was seen as Jon Foreman and Co. taming themselves a lot and losing their edginess. Granted, it also served as the soundtrack for their rockumentary of the same name, but that didn't excuse it in most fans' minds. This album had to be an attempt to return to what made Switchfoot great in the first place; otherwise, the band could have been in real trouble.
The question then becomes, "Does Where the Light Shines Through go backwards to the band's better work and forwards to new territory at the same time?" The answer is an easy yes, though in a different way than I expected. The album's opening trio of "Holy Water," "Float," and the title track do a really good job at bridging the gap between The Beautiful Letdown and what has come recently from the band, while "If the House Burns Down Tonight" reminds me thematically and sonically of "Hello Hurricane" mixed with a little bit of the better half of Fading West. "Bull in a China Shop" and "Looking for America" are great late album highlights as well, with the former being a little like "Selling the News" but without the rapping and the latter being an interesting step forward with Lecrae's feature. There's nothing like it in their catalog, so it's something that I really appreciated as a longtime listener. It also casts a bit of a thematic shadow over the last couple tracks that brings a much different slant to the record overall. Lyrically, the album is pretty solid as well, as Jon Foreman tends to always be. For the most part, he does a good job balancing the influence of his faith with writing about the topics he does. The album centers on optimism in darkness, and the former definitely pierces the latter throughout.
Unfortunately, there are a few missteps on Where the Light Shines Through, both musically and (quite surprisingly) lyrically. "Live It Well" and "I Won't Let You Go" might be the most Christian radio-friendly Switchfoot has sounded in their career, and they are so disorienting and almost hypocritical from a band that has repeatedly distanced themselves from the explicitly Christian market. For some reason they can't even be balanced out by the more adventurous tracks on the album because of the way they interact with the Christian market. Lyrically, my main issue is the track "The Day That I Found God." I don't have a problem with the message of the song, but it feels so out of place on this record because of the vaguely Christian lyrics on the rest of the album. One of Switchfoot's biggest assets is their ability to blur the line between the mainstream and Christian markets, and this song is so clearly on one side of that line that it's disorienting. These flaws may seem mostly centered on the band's relationship with Christian music and will probably be inconsequential to most listeners; however, that aspect of Switchfoot's band philosophy is one of the reasons I still listen to them today. By backtracking sonically into some of the tropes of contemporary Christian music, I feel a little miffed and let down as a longtime fan of that particular characteristic of the band.
Overall, though, Where the Light Shines Through is definitely a solid attempt at straddling the line between past and future. There are some missteps that will be felt to varying degrees based on one's opinion of Switchfoot's relationship to Christian music, but sonically there's a lot to like here. It's a good blend of current indie trends and some of Switchfoot's past trademarks that is growing on me with every listen as I dive deeper into the album because of the surprising lyrical depth along the way.
Rating: 3.5/5
Best tracks: "Holy Water," "Float," "If the House Burns Down Tonight," "Bull in a China Shop," "Looking for America (feat. Lecrae)"
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