The Beautiful Letdown
Switchfoot
Sparrow Records

"The Beautiful Letdown" starts out strong with "Meant To Live," a memorable tune with an awesome intro that psyches you up for a rockin' experience. From there it's more of an average rock album musically, but still written theologically deep as Switchfoot is famous for. The album picks up again with "Dare You To Move," which was released prior to this album on "Learning To Breath," and it showboats the rest of "The Beautiful Letdown."

Maybe show boating is too simple of an approach when you have a band that is so diverse. It's hard to pin them down to one style. "Dare You To Move" compared to the rest of the album comes from different moment in their lives and when it's included on "The Beautiful Letdown" it reinforces the fact that the band is evolving artistically.

"The Beautiful Letdown" is challenging because it reflects real life whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. Switchfoot has an attraction that is unexplainable and even though I don't find their latest as musically pleasing as "Learning To Breath," I commend their consistent desire to writing with honesty and humility.

Ken W.