RATING:  4.5 / 5 stars

By Chris Moore:

Relient K’s new 2009 release Forget and Not Slow Down — the Christian rock band’s sixth studio album — is a fine addition to their catalog.  Indeed, if the recent history of Relient K has been one of striking a balance between their trademark tongue-in-cheek moves and being taken more seriously, then this album is the ultimate realization of that endeavor.

Taken one song at a time, this latest release may not initially measure up to the standout tracks of their career — think: “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been,” “Falling Out,” “Getting Into You,” or “Sadie Hawkins Dance” to name a few.  And yet, perhaps for the first time in their now decade-long career, Thiessen and company have assembled a truly excellent album.

To be sure, this is the first Relient K release to transcend the bounds of the standard “15 or so songs we wrote and recorded around the same time” theme of their previous records.

THE REVIEW CONTINUES AFTER THE BREAK…

"Forget and Not Slow Down" - Relient K (2009)

Forget and Not Slow Down

TRACK LISTING

1)    “Forget and Not Slow Down”

2)    “I Don’t Need a Soul”

3)    “Candlelight”

4)    “Flare (Outro)”

5)    “Part of It”

6)    “(Outro)”

7)    “Therapy”

8)    “Over It”

9)    “Sahara”

10)  “Oasis (Intro)”

11)  “Savannah”

12)  “Baby (Outro)”

13)  “If You Believe Me”

14)  “This is the End”

15) “(If You Want It)”

“You’re not the first thing in my life I’ve loved and lost,” lead vocalist Matthew Thiessen croons in “This is the End (If You Want It),” the aptly titled closing track .  Simply put, this love and loss that Thiessen refers to is the driving force that unites each thread of the album .

Thus, approached as a study of one man’s reaction to the end of a serious relationship, Forget and Not Slow Down is an engaging concept album from start to finish.

The opener (and title track) sets the scene for what is to come, laying out the philosophy of accepting what is in the past, “gather[ing] regrets for the things I can’t change now.”  The second track, “I Don’t Need a Soul,” echoes this sentiment and can be read as a further declaration of independence.

The third track marks an abrupt change of pace, finding Thiessen singing the praises of a woman so beautiful as to attract so many fireflies to her “Candlelight” as to obscure her view, a beauty so pure that it results in pinched nerves in the necks of men turning around too quickly to look at her.

The idealized view of this woman is only temporary as “Part of It” finds the narrator “working with adhesives, chains and locks and ropes and knots to tether.”  Thiessen continues, “But nothing’s sticking to the pieces; I can’t seem to hold it all together.”  This is where the concept of the album truly begins to crystallize: a man is suddenly on his own — he wants to “forget and not slow down,” but vacillates between renewal and denial.

“Therapy” is a travelogue of a man on his own, riding with only music to accompany him, dressed in the clothes he woke up in.  Soon after, “Over It” is about moving forward, but seems less convincing for the repetition of the chorus.

Which brings us to “Sahara,” the hardest rocking song on the album (and probably the one that most deserves the reference to the Foo Fighters that Theissen made during a recent interview).  This track is all about frustration and airing out the scars sustained during a previous relationship.

“Savannah,” with the placidly beautiful “Oasis (Intro)” and distorted “Baby (Outro)” is the perfect follow-up to “Sahara,” and the listener can feel the calm that comes over the narrator as he refers not so much to the actual Savannah, Georgia, but rather to what the town represented for them in their relationship.

“If You Believe Me” could be read either as an “I told you so” moment or as a statement to a potential new lover, but there is no mistaking the message of “This is the End (If You Want It).”  There is frustration, but there is more importantly closure and peace in this final track.  It is truly the payoff moment for the entire album — it is not the best or even my favorite song, but it provides the perfect ending, both musically and lyrically, for this outstanding concept album.

At the end of the day, Forget and Not Slow Down appears doomed to be marginalized by the mainstream music press.  Thus far, Rolling Stone has essentially ignored its existence.  Indeed, Relient K does seem to have found themselves being written off by both rock critics (as “Christian rock” and thus not palatable to a larger, secular audience) and original fans (for having signed on with a major label).

Still, the new album debuted at #15 on the Billboard 200, as well as scoring favorable reviews in the independent press.  The only small press reviewer to award fewer than four out of five stars gave a largely favorable review, only vaguely noting that, “There are some tracks that aren’t entirely appealing.”

And if that’s the worst he could write about this album, then perhaps there is still hope that it won’t be ignored — or entirely forgotten — after all…

By Jim Fusco:

I suppose I should’ve done a song today to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of “The Day the Music Died”.  You know, maybe a Buddy Holly tune, or something from the Big Bopper or Ritchie Valens.  But, I decided to honor their memory in a different way…by completely forgetting to do a song by them until I just started writing this post…

Sorry Buddy, Bopper, and Ritchie.

Well, I am happy to bring you a new artist to the music video blog tonight, anyway.  And this person’s still alive (and apparently still putting on some great concerts)- Frankie Valli!  He and his group, the Four Seasons, had so may hits in the sixties (and even a couple big ones later on in the disco era) and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do one of their songs.

Apparently the Spinners had a big hit with “Working My Way Back To You” in the early eighties, but I’ve always known this original version from 1966 that went all the way to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.  It was a nice challenge to recreate the vocal abilities of Frankie Valli, as he’s always been known for his whiny falsetto.  I don’t necessarily have that kind of falsetto, but I think it gets the sentiment across.  In fact, if you read my post from last Tuesday, you’ll see my comments about how falsetto voices are very hard to reproduce.  That’s because everyone’s voice goes into falsetto at different notes up the scale.  So, you’ll notice in this video that I tend to only do a few notes in falsetto during that last chorus.

I was mentioning to Becky earlier that you can always tell when a song was done by a group that doesn’t write their own songs.  Rock music songwriters usually won’t go out of their way to add a key change for the last, repeating, chorus.  But, as with showtunes and more “vocalist” acts like the Temptations, the Four Tops, and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, they take songs from these “serial songwriters” that just write (and not perform) songs for a living.  So, they try to make these big productions out of their songs, which usually includes a key change.  Go back and listen to some of the more “lounge-singer” type acts from the sixties like Johnny Rivers- you’ll hear exactly what I mean.

It’s always fun to bring you another great acoustic cover song music video here on Jim Fusco Tuesdays on the Laptop Sessions music video blog.  Since I brought you the past two Original Wednesday posts, I’m going to take tomorrow off and hope that Chris and/or Jeff will step in.  We’re excited again today because the blog reached 304 views- our NEW best view count for a day!  Thank you to all of the new fans of the Laptop Sessions and especially to those that always come back to see my videos on Tuesday.

Have a great week and I’ll be back again for Jim Fusco Tuesday next week on the greatest (and now, most popular) music video blog ever created!

For Death Cab for Cutie chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to the first all-new Laptop Session of 2010!  It is my pleasure to kick off another great year here for the best cover song music video blog on the Internet today.  This past year has indeed been a year of changes, of many comings and goings for most of us here, and now we’re setting out to make this the best year yet. 

There’s a lot to live up to, given the past two years  and more of contributions.

Still, I think we’re up to it.

What can you expect?  Well, for now, you can expect a Chris Moore Monday and a Jim Fusco Tuesday each week.  Although Thumpin’ Thursday is no longer regularly filled, you never know when Jeff will get the itch again…  As for Guest Sessions Friday, it is my sincere hope that recent regular Jeremy Hammond will continue to send me links.  In fact, he’s already sent me the link to his video for this Friday’s post, and I can tell you that it’s a song that I remember fondly.  I first heard it on one of my dad’s “hits of the seventies” cassette tapes.  (Remember those?  They were THE media before CDs…)  From what little I know of him through our email conversations, Jeremy seems like a really interesting guy with some great ideas for cover songs to record.  Finally, as for Saturday and Sunday, there will be one edition of “The Weekend Review” each week.  On top of all that, you have the “From the Music Blog Archives” feature to look forward to each and every time you visit the site; we’ve gotten to the point where there are so many posts available to draw from that many are ones that I read as though for the first time…

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll check out my “50 Best Rock Albums of the Decade, 2000-2009″ list and liner notes, posted over the past several days.  Now, my next project is to finish off my “Best of 2009″ lists.

First, though, I need to take a breather!

Today was the first day back to school, and what a relaxing start it was, due mostly to the 90 minute delay we had.  I didn’t sleep in, but I did get a lot of grading done.  When I finish this post, I’ll be returning to that seemingly endless task until I’m off to a BK Lounge run with Mike and three hours of live TNA.  This feels in many ways like the biggest single show since my friends got me interested in professional wrestling a couple years ago, so I’m looking forward to it as a full three hours of relaxation before school gets back into full swing tomorrow.

Which brings me, at last, to the session of the night.  I’m bringing you my cover version of Death Cab for Cutie’s “The New Year,” which is the opening track to their strong Transatlanticism album.  I’ve already recorded one song from that release, “The Sound of Settling,” a while back, but I couldn’t think of any better song for the first post of the New Year, 2010. 

I hope you’ve had a relaxing and productive holiday, and that the promise of more Laptop Sessions and related posts gives you something to look forward to throughout 2010.

See you next session!

By Chris Moore:

Welcome to September, a truly promising month for new music from the likes of Steven Page, Ben Folds, and Weezer!

Today, I’m taking a break from our regularly scheduled Original Wednesday program of previews from The 2010 Project to bring you a song I just wrote last week.

Specifically, a song I wrote on Monday of last week.

You may be wondering, why Monday?  Well, August 23rd — aside from being my friend and sometimes-collaborator Alberto Distefano’s birthday — marked the fifth anniversary of my first date with my girlfriend Nicole.  Because we broke up for three months in late 2008, we’ve decided to officially celebrate our anniversary on the day we got back together for the first time, January 2nd.  (I’m personally a fan of this date for all its implications of the new year, fresh beginnings, resolutions to be made, and all the promise this invokes.  And, although it’s only a week after Christmas, the original date was only a week before her birthday, so proximity to other occasions is not a factor.)

Thus, August 23rd has become the anniversary that we’ve promised to honor, but without monetary expense in the name of gifts.

We never said anything about not spending time to make something like, say, a song!

I spent the better part of my morning last Monday writing, playing, and perfecting “The One For Me.”  It is one of the — if not the — best love songs I’ve written, in my opinion.  And, for those that don’t know, my opinion is that my love songs are generally sub-par.  The version which you will hear in the video below is the first full performance I committed to tape last week.  I’ve been playing it numerous times each day since and it has progressed considerably from the form it is in on this session.

Why post an out-of-date version?

For one, I like the idea of showing off a fresh song, without having practiced it or worked on it.  What is Original Wednesday, after all, if it is not a place to celebrate the writing process?  In addition, I’m trying to imagine a spot for this song on The 2010 Project, so it may show up there.  If it does, you will hopefully be able to tell how much it has progressed since this video.  (And, it will have turned out that today is indeed another installment of the preview series.)

So, without further ado, I give you “The One For Me.”  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll tune back in for more exciting new material here at the Laptop Sessions as we move into the fall season.

See you next session!