Three years ago, I walked into Newbury Comics, which, despite the name, only sells like 10 comics. The rest of the store is made up of CD’s, T-shirts and action figures of Jesus. After meandering around the store for a few minutes, I noticed the great CD they had playing over the PA.
I went and asked the employee at the counter who was responsible for the music I was hearing. “It’s Saves The Day,” he said. So I obviously went straight for the “S” rack and picked up the album, “Through Being Cool.” It was some of the best music I’d ever heard because it was so different, so hard to categorize.
Saves The Day is one of those bands where your friends ask you, “Oh, Saves The Day? What do they sound like?” and you can’t tell them. “Oh, you’d have to hear it,” you say. The entire album was intense, fast, loud, emo-punk with honest, emotionally-exhausting lyrics that you wouldn’t expect from a bunch of teenagers. But these kids are way ahead of themselves.
Cut to this past summer. I walk into Newbury Comics, this time with an agenda: to pick up Saves The Day’s new album, “Stay What You Are.” I’m sure you’ve all had that time when your favorite band releases a new album and you can’t get the annoying stickers and packaging off the CD fast enough. This was that CD for me. I threw it into my CD player and waited for track 1 to start.
Already I had noticed the mature-looking album cover. I say mature-looking because the layout for their previous album was set up like a Little Golden Book story, with the band showing up at a party, hilarity ensues.
As I hear the opening for “At Your Funeral”, track 1 on the new album, I realize that their album layout isn’t the only thing they left behind after switching labels. The loud energy that they encompassed so well on ‘Through Being Cool” is remarkably absent. At first, I was a little disappointed, but I’d be lying if I told you I don’t like the new direction the band has chosen.
It’s evident that the band has done a lot of growing up since their last release. “Stay What You Are” is serious, and a lot more personal than “Through Being Cool.” This time around, lead singer Chris Conley relates his experiences with real problems, such as dealing with death, and getting older.
In the song “Cars ‘ Calories”, he sings about the problems of anorexia, and learning to accept yourself, “When all tomorrow brings/ is a set of broken wings/ it takes bites/ out of your insides/ until you are just a hollow shell.” He encourages self-appreciation in the song “This Is Not An Exit” saying “You walk across the stage/take a bow, hear the applause/and as the curtain falls/ just know you did it all/ the best that you knew how.” There are the obvious songs about girls and heartbreak, but upon listening to these songs, you can tell that they mean every word of it.
Let’s not short-change the other band members. Saves The Day is a five-man operation, and every man plays his part. Eben D’Amico’s wandering basslines seem to be the pulse behind the album, with Ted Alexander and Dave Soloway providing the interweaving guitars, and Bryan Newman (who has since left the band to pursue a college education) behind the wheel of the drums.
It’s almost like every song is a painting on a giant canvas. Each band member takes a look at it and throws what they’ve got onto it. These songs are subdued and mellow, but at the same time energetic. They’re the kind of songs that gets stuck in your head.
At first listen you may not like the album, but after playing it a few times, it will grow on you. My friend Greg, who is a hard egg to crack, swore off the album early last semester, christening it “Crap-rock.”
Later in the year, he was asking me to turn it up. “Stay What You Are” might not be for all tastes, but it comes highly recommended from a music junkie. It’s an album that “…rocks harder than any other CD ever with the exception of the Tenacious D album, which is an epic in it’s own right” said Dave Grazynski ’04. After reading all this, you might be asking yourself, “What do they sound like?” You’d have to hear it.
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