There was a point in time in which I absolutely loved Saves The Day. It was at the turn of the century when their creative juices were working overtime, peaking in 2001 with the stellar Stay What You Are. Since then, frontman Chris Conley, guitarist David Solloway and the revolving door which is the rest of this New Jersey rock band have sadly regressed musically; culminating with the 2006 mess Sound the Alarm.
Saves\' latest effort, Under the Boards, does a good job of stopping the seemingly inescapable backwards progress that their previous album brought about. It moves forward into a more creative landscape of songwriting. The album moves along smoothly with each song running into one another without reprieve and, despite the odd mix of styles, it all seems rather cohesive which is something Saves has always done well in the past. Overall Under the Boards takes strides not to be like Sound the Alarm. The band mostly abandons the short, dark punk-inspired songs in favor of more pop-oriented and experimental sounds. They also dropped the demented, self-mutilating lyrics that littered their last effort in favor of more traditional heart break lyrical musings. Despite all the improvements though, Under the Boards still lacks in a number of areas.
Under the Boards opens up with the title song, which quickly showcases that Conley\'s singing voice is largely unchanged. It\'s only a few minutes in that you\'ll probably get your first cringe worthy moment. His howling falsetto is a far cry from the singing voice that once made Saves famous. Maybe someone less bias than me could see Chris\' new voice as a great asset to the band, I have heard from a number of people who enjoy his current singing style, but for me it\'s what seems to hurt Under the Boards more than anything.
The self-titled opener builds up to the second track, "Radio" which along with the following song "Can\'t Stay the Same" are a couple of the most pop oriented-songs this band has ever done. A catchy chorus helps the former to become one of the more memorable songs on the disc. "Stay" takes the prize for my favorite song on the album. It\'s a beautiful acoustic track that is heavily reminiscent of one of Saves\' best slow down moments: the dreamy "She" from the ethereal In Reverie.
Ranging from familiar power pop and punk rock to new odd directions, Under the Boards crosses over into quite a few directions, some that work and some not so much. The album runs along like a story, switching styles along the way from a more upbeat pop sound at the beginning, more experimental and ill-fated sounds in the middle, and ending with a harsher punk sound. You may be surprised to hear some killer guitar work on the later tracks, including an applause-worthy solo on "Kaleidoscope," showing a side of the band that was only hinted at in the past.
The large array of diverse styles that the band attempts sometimes just doesn\'t seem suited for them, and Conley just doesn\'t have the voice anymore to be able to cross into so many different styles of music. At times his vocal style fits in well with the surrounding music allowing him to sort of mask the flaws of it in the swirling sound, yet at other times it soars over the underlying music like a sore thumb. Likewise, at times Under the Boards sounds great, but it\'s plagued with too many bad tracks to save it from the depths of mediocrity.
"Under the Boards" is on sale October 30, 2007 from Vagrant.
