Monday, November 2, 2009

New Youtube Channel Design; Daily Vault calls "Hello Hurricane" Album of the Year

Check out the new look of Switchfoot's new Youtube channel!



Be sure to head on over and SUBSCRIBE if you haven't. We should be seeing the official "Mess of Me" video later today! So be on the lookout, and we'll keep you updated.

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The Daily Vault posted their review of "Hello Hurricane," and I must say, this is the first absolutely glowing review we've seen – they tabbed "Hello Hurricane" as the Album of the Year! A sign of good things to come? I think so.

I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling the world could use a little inspiration right now.  It’s no accident that the word on everyone’s lips these days is “change” -- the undercurrent being, “we aren’t happy with the way things are.”

For the thinking artist, times like these are rich with challenge.  Superficiality won’t cut it, and you can’t inspire an audience as jaded as today’s without first acknowledging the cold hard reality they are knee-deep in already.  So how do you give them both the truth, and hope?

You do it by making an album as inspirational, aspirational, and all-out magnificent as Hello Hurricane, which I’m ready to call, right here on the second day of November, the album of the year.  

Much more than Switchfoot’s rather disjointed, experimental 2006 disc Oh! Gravity., Hello Hurricane feels like the true successor to 2005’s masterful Nothing Is Sound.  The bold, expansive, Zeppelin- and U2-influenced alt-rock of this San Diego quintet -- Jon Foreman (vocals/guitar), Tim Foreman (bass), Chad Butler (drums), Jerome Fontamillas (keys/guitar) and Drew Shirley (guitar) -- is as propulsive and compelling as ever, while their examinations of loneliness and resilience and discovering hope amidst despair have only grown more sophisticated and involving.

The disc opens with throbbing bass over skittering, martial-cadenced drums, joined by rippling, echoing guitar and finally keening vocals streaming in over the top -- which is to say, “Needle And Haystack Life” owes a lot to Joshua Tree-era U2, but of course that’s nothing but a compliment if you can pull it off, and they do, in spades.
Initial single “Mess Of Me” ups the emotional ante further with a burning tempo and slashing riffs as Jon Foreman wails over the top.  The music is driving, furious, cathartic, and matched perfectly to Foreman’s lyric about addiction and degradation and ultimately, channeling desperation into a drive for redemption (“I want to live the rest of my life alive”).


Read the rest HERE.

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Charts

"Mess of Me" has jumped up a few spots on the Alternative charts, sitting at No. 36. It was at No. 34 on the Billboard Alternative songs chart this week!

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VOTING

Don't forget to keep voting! We're making a lot of progress.

- 98.7 (Los Angeles) Badass 8 We cracked the Top 8!! but we need to continue to put pressure on. The station is starting to spin the song more... VOTE.

- 91x (San Diego) Christy Taylor's REALLY BIG Countdown Keep requesting each day to keep it on the countdown!

- RadioU's Top Ten Most Wanted. We have regained the top spot! Well done! Let's keep it that way!

- We need to get "Mess of Me" on to KROQ, in order to get this single off the ground. Go HERE to request it! Keep it up friends! Don't slow down, WE NEED THIS.

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Go here to see a list of stations already playing "Mess of Me" and phone numbers to call in and request the song with!

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