Hello Hurricane: Dynamic Consistency
2 min readSwitchfoot is one of those bands whose albums I just automatically pick up when they’re released. That puts them in pretty rare territory at a time in my life when each expenditure falls under the scrutiny of the family budget. Their seventh, Hello Hurricane, has been a long time coming – three years after their last, Oh! Gravity. The interim found the band’s front man, Jon Foreman, exploring his singer/songwriter side on several solo EPs as well as collaborating with Nickel Creek’s Sean Watkins as Fiction Family whose eponymous album was released in January of this year.
All of those were solid efforts critically and musically, but I have to admit that I was a bit worried. Was Jon following in the footsteps of past favorites of mine like Elvis Costello, or even worse, the spiky-haired proto-punker-turned-patron-saint of soccer moms, Sting?! Had he grown up to make music that everyone respected, but that excited no one? Thankfully, those fears are unfounded. It seems that what Jon has been doing is exorcising his mellow demons and maturing as a songwriter. Switchfoot has unleashed its most raucous effort yet.
I’m not saying that Hello Hurricane rips your ears off. In fact, it starts off with the incredibly melodic and polished power-pop “Needle and Haystack Life.” It’s as hooky as anything, tightly-crafted, and offers a perspective on life that’s all too lost on most songwriters today.
And, so begins a theme that continues throughout the album. It’s a theme of perception versus reality – of what is versus what can be – that comes from the heart of a mature artist who understands what’s really going on in the world, knows his place in it, and has an intimate relationship with his God that’s rooted in love.
Consistent as the lyrical theme might be, the music offers a diversity of style and tone that sets Hurricane apart from so many other albums these days. It moves from its aforementioned power-pop blast-off to the anthemic, “Mess of Me,” then mellows with the power-ballad, “Your Love is a Symphony”, only to be ripped back to life by the overdriven, staccato musical theme of “The Sound”, whose intensity is amplified by Jon’s straining and screaming vocals. The dynamic variety continues throughout the album, but the intensity never wanes. I would point out other gems on the album, but it would be easier for me to say that this is an album with no wasted moments. Every song adds to the brilliance of the total package.
