No Fading Away

Surf Rock is back.  For those not familiar with Surfing, a switchfoot is a surfing move where the surfer switches foot position on the board during surfing. Or something like that.

Familiarity with the band at Night Beat HQ has been almost been from the beginning. I was working for Sparrow Records at the Inside Out Soul Festival in 2001 during the Learning To Breathe tour. (Or New Way to Be Human. Not really sure about Wikipedia's accuracy.) Anyway. amongst the swag I received was a pre-release copy of Learning To Breathe. That was 2001.

Fast Forward 12 years and 6 albums later. Fading West, the bands latest release, is, in my opinion, their best yet. Vice Verses was good, but this is better. (Don't get me going about Vice Re Verses. Remixes don't automatically improve things.) Love is worth the fight kicks off this short but sweet release (Amazon says it's 43 minutes. I think they have corporate dyslexia and it should be 34. It goes by really quick.) More alternative rock than rock, the album thrives with mostly soft ballads. Love is worth the fight, The World You Want and Slipping Away are among my favorites.

The album is a cross between an album and a Film Soundtrack, as the band released a tour film documentary of the same name, only released digitally at the moment. I have not yet seen the movie, but if it has these songs as its soundtrack, who cares about the film.

I don't really like handing out 5's like candy, and I'm opening the store for this one. 5 Emeralds for Fading West. having had this on auto repeat I have no doubt it will be among the final 7 Alternative Albums in the 5th Platinum Vinyl Awards. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.