Saves The Day Band • Page 18

yes thats them thank you Joe

both very talented, very intricate rhythm section. I originally learned bass so I always have a soft spot for bassplayers and especially technically proficient bassplayers. Its always a shame to hear the bass relegated to "just do what the rhythm guitar is doing" yknow? like, bass is the physical aspect of music, it shakes you and moves you and can be very melodically powerful so why not utilize it? Thats more-so an issue with pop punk and alt rock in general though

 

Bass has always been the instrument I tend to focus on when it comes to repeated listens to songs. I just love the sound and tone, and it's especially awesome when it's incredible basslines like what Saves the Day had back then.

It's why I was so obsessed with ska/punk bands when I was younger, because the bass is so prominent and is doing so many different and cool things than what I had listened to previously.

 

''Don't Know Why'' is so underrated. Seriously one of my favorite songs. One of my favorite bands, but I wasn't feeling the S/T at all. I hope they go in a darker, angrier, more punk direction this time. Or at least incorporate heavier things musically. JMO.

 

Stay What You Are probably has my favorite basslines from any album in the scene

 

SWYA bass lines are great but Manny on Sound the Alarm..unreal

 

I will go to bat for STA, even though it was somewhat disappointing. Eulogy, Bones, Head for The Hill, and Don't Know Why are all jams.

 

Does anyone know when the song Ups and Downs was recorded? Was it in the same session as SWYA, or later?

 

Always wondered that too, because the vocals sound like that era. Great song btw.

 

It really sounds like it could have been recorded in the same studio time that they did SWYA.

 

It was during the SWYA era, I believe Chris confirmed it when that collection was release. It certainly would fit, the guitars are very much in the same vein as SWYA

 

The outro to Say You'll Never Leave... awesome walkin' groovin' bass line.

 

The drums at the "annnnd they'll drag me out to the wasteland" verse make absolutely no sense to me. It's amazing and makes my brain hurt in the best way.

 

I think both. Last year when I saw him on the Where's the Band tour (before the...incident), Dan had mentioned that Chris had given him shrooms before the show. And Chris lives in Cali so i'm sure at the very least he has access to some wild bud.

 

Oh I thought Chris was still in NJ for some reason

 

Hell Is Here is the most underrated Sound The Alarm song!

 

Alright. Now has anyone everheard the Sound the Alarm song that never made the cut? I believe it was called Sticky 500.

 

What?! I've never heard about this!

 

!!! This band has A lot of rumored b sides wtf release them

 

Who's the other guitarist?

 

Yeah, I know. I'm glad it did too. Although I guess in retrospect it might have been better if he saved it for Daybreak or Saves the Day cuz his voice on Under the Boards still had a bit too much of that fake British snarl he weirdly started using on Sound The Alarm.

Yes, I agree that some of the songwriting on Sound The Alarm is more sophisticated. For instance, I couldn't imagine anything like the song "Sound The Alarm", "34" and maybe even "Delusional" on a pre-Stay What You Are album. However, stuff like "Dying Day" is like sub-Green Day mall-punk, just pathetic. And while "Diseased" is catchy, it's also nowhere near the kinda thing Chris could do even three years earlier. Once again, it's just kinda cheesy pop-punk of the variety that I'm pretty sure dude could pump out in his sleep if he wanted to. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against punkier sounds. I thought "Don't Go Outside" and "Blossom" (both In Reverie outtakes) were both kinda great even though they harked back to Saves The Day's faster stuff. The difference in my opinion was the lack of the goofy, over-affected vocal style I mentioned earlier that he used on Sound The Alarm and some of Under the Boards and also the presence of lyrics that didn't tread over ground that he already captured perfectly on Through Being Cool and Stay What You Are. "Blossom" and "Don't Go Outside" succeed where a lot of the stuff on Sound The Alarm doesn't because they seem like the band playing whatever, and not trying to hark back to something, no lyrics about chopping off his limbs or drinking blood, instead what seemed to be some commentary on the human condition, which to me is much more interesting that more overblown human mutilation imagery, which let's be honest, ran it's course once we reached Stay What You Are.

And though, there are certain times I will willingly want to listen to something like "The End" or "Delusional" or maybe "Eulogy", they album as a whole to me reeks of a sell out. And not a sell out in the old way where the band changed from their classic sound to gain mass acceptance. Instead in this scenario, I feel like Chris (and maybe Dave) got really nervous after In Reverie didn't do as well as they hoped (even though it got their highest ever chart placing and I'm pretty sure sold well into at least the 100,000s of copies) and thought that maybe they took their music too far from what the small minded emo/mall-punk dorks were willing to put up with. So then Chris dyes his hair pink and adopts this cheesy nasal, fake British accent and all of a sudden goes super punky again. Unfortunately by the time Sound The Alarm shows up on the scene it seems like to an extent time had passed Saves the Day by, and I'm nearly positive that Sound The Alarm may not have even done half as well as In Reverie did.

After that, the output just kinda seemed confused to me. I thought both Under the Boards and Daybreak had a few strong songs a piece ("Get Fucked Up" and "Bye Bye Baby" on UTB and "Let It All Go" and "Living Without Love" on Daybreak), but neither were all that great, and neither were even as good as something kinda lame like Sound The Alarm. And I thought the self titled album was just....ugh. Unoriginal and just lacking in the Conley touch. Just very generic. It almost feels like he is not physically able to write something moving like "This Is Not an Exit" or "Freakish" or "Driving in the Dark" or "In My Waking Life" even if he wanted to. Like he got amnesia and is unable to recover that.

And that to me is why I've hoped against hope for almost a decade that Chris would decide to release "Zebra", so we could get at least get another taste of the greatness Chris could produce when he was in in "the zone" songwriting-wise.

But hey, regardless I'll continue to give his new stuff a chance, hoping that a new one will hit me like "Driving in the Dark" did. However, especially after hearing a bit of that latest Two Tongues album, my hopes have never been lower on that issue.

 

I need to hear Zebra so bad. I wish they would do more with In Reverie as a whole too. I think it would go over very well these days.

I remember a lot of people comparing that album to Weezer when it first came out too. I never got that comparison. Personally, In Reverie reminds me A LOT of Nada Surf and I LOVE Nada Surf.

 

In Reverie and SWYA remind me a lot of Pinkerton.

Disagree with the above long post I think Chris is still just as good at writing songs as ever and The s/t was a really good solid album

 

Just now hearing the b sides to In Reverie. I would have liked it a lot more had these made it. Much needed faster songs, and done well.

 

s/t is probably my least favorite of their albums other than Can't Slow Down but I still really like it

Stuff like "In the in Between" and "Xenophobic Blind Left Hook" is really strong pop songwriting imo

 

I would say the past three albums have been a mixed bag as a whole, with a lot of it being "alright" or "good" but never "amazing" like the previous material often was. None of it is outright "bad", but it just has that lack of anthemic emotional quality Chris could churn out seemingly effortlessly. He got a lot less poetic to me. I get growing older dulls that sort of thing, but that spark just never came back when listening to these albums. I'm still waiting for IR to get a vinyl reissue. Such a great record. Wish I hadn't slept on it for years. But when I finally bought it in 2006, it blew my mind.