With the apple in my mouth....

Day three of the theme week that is "Bands Known For Only One Song But Are Really Quite Good Honest / Nerd-Rock" which brings us neatly to Saves The Day. Now I might be pushing it a little bit here, as album sales wise they do okay. However, when it comes to playing records in a club, you are only ever going to get away with At Your Funeral.

Saves The Day were emo before it became a dirty word. Their average age was just fifteen when they brought out their first album, Can't Slow Down in 1998. Whilst it is certainly raw, and bares all the hallmarks of being recorded in a couple of days for a couple of hundred quid, it does have some fine pop punk moments on it, particularly track 2, The Choke. But it's the follow up album, Through Being Cool released a year later, where they really started to sound like a polished band. Track 3, Should To The Wheel is one of my favorite emo/punk songs of all time.

With the release of Stay What You Are and the big cross over anthem, At Your Funeral, Saves The Day managed to make themselves an MTV playlist staple for a year or so, mainly down to the catchy song and clever video that accompanied it. Then they promptly sank without trace. I couldn't even tell you what the other singles from the album were.

With the release of the last album, In Reverie, something strange happened to the band. When I first picked it up, I thought that they'd got a new vocalist. Gone were the trade-mark straining-to-hit-any-note-at-all vocals that made the band who they were. Apparently, constant touring made the Chris Conley realise that if he wanted to still be able to speak in ten years time, he might actually need to learn how to sing. I really didn't like the last album - all the rawness had been knocked out of the band, everything had been compressed to a nice flat blandness, and it was all a bit twee for me. It still had some well written songs, but it was just all too...well nice really

But there is a new album about to, as Tim Westwood would say, drop, and what I've heard so far, it is a bit of compromise between the two ages of STD (unfortunate initials really). Which means it will be worth buying if you like the band, but may not win you over if you've never checked them out before. Although, in a market where anything with a swept over hair cut and Converse Allstars (and yes I am aware of hypocrasy) sells millions, they should be just fine


Saves The Day - At Your Funeral




Saves The Day - Shoulder To The Wheel