Quoting a wise man, “It’s like pizza, see? Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good, but when all’s said and done, it’s still sauce and cheese on bread”…

Combining both my reviews for Memento’s “Beginnings” and Switchfoot’s “The Beautiful Letdown” might seem to give short shrift to both recordings, but it illustrates a point. More on that later.

Switchfoot’s release is another entry in a classification I call ‘Dawson’s Rock’, referring to the pop-rock songs that used to get heavy rotation on that once popular show. It was often a little crunchy, dashed with trip elements but often had a certain plaintive vocal characteristic shared with so many other bands. It was earnest, sometimes too earnest and the band members were always terribly photogenic. This is ‘girlfriend rock’.

Memento comes just short of being yet another nu-metal Johnny Come Lately by openly showing its connection to a harder-edged version of that same pop-rock. It’s also found wallowing in the pool of serious, determined to express its pain. The band members are photogenic in the pierced and tattooed manner. This is ‘boyfriend rock’.

Of course, those categories are rather glib, but then so is the narrow trajectory each band has aimed their respective sound. I enjoyed both CDs a lot as all involved are talented musicians and good songwriters, but I was never truly surprised… Both discs left me wanting for a more obtuse sense of humor too.

“The Beautiful Letdown” will be classified as a debut, but Switchfoot has been around for years now. Another band who is trying to break away from the confines of the poorly-distributed Contemporary Christian Music market, they follow groups like Sixpence None The Richer, Chevelle and The Juliana Theory into the dangerous mainstream. This time out, they’ve enlisted the bass help of Jerome Fontamillas, formerly of the quasi- legendary groups Mortal and Fold Zandura.

The songs supply bouts of hard guitar but also keep things lighter with bouncy production and easy beats, specifically on songs like “Gone” and the first single “More Than Fine”. This is contemplative but sunny music, and nothing here is going to send you running for a bottle of Zoloft, but the band never breaks into new territory with the lyrics, often firmly set in the stone of “this is life for us all” commentary. I have a feeling that this disc was written more for the CCM market, so I get the ambivalence. When they truly get free, the potential is there for really memorable songcraft.

Where they’re at now is a good, enjoyable place. One gets the feeling they’re going to only get better.

“Beginnings” is harder to wrap my head around because I can see a band caught in a time warp. Believe it; had they come up a couple years before the onslaught of Disturbed, Mudvayne and Linkin Park, Memento might have changed the course of the now fading nu-metal category. But could they have existed without their forebears?

Produced and polished by Toby Wright (Alice In Chains, Sevendust) and Brendan O’Brien (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots), the sound is just as you’d expect. Songs that stick out like the piano-driven “Reflections” and the epic 12-minute closer, “Figure 8” is eminently listenable but, once more, there is little to surprise the new listener here. The hard stuff pummels, the soft stuff aches, and it verges on the predictable.

And yet I’ve given both discs very good marks. Why?

If you play these discs, you will not be disappointed. You won’t run back to repeat them, but they achieve what they set out to do, like pizza. The trick will be for each band to break from their archetypes. Can Switchfoot become something more than poster-ready ‘girlfriend rock’? Can Memento write the song with strength of character that doesn’t rely on amplitude or exaggerated pathos to bring it home?

Time will tell. In the meantime, eat your pizza. Even though it’s only pizza, it’s still pretty darn good.

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Memento

Beginnings

Released: October 07, 2003
Origination Year: 2003
Time: 54:51
Tracks: 11
Produced by: Toby Wright
Style: Studio
Format: CD
Enhancement: EPK
Label: Columbia Records
Website:
www.Mementoband.com

Nothing Sacred
Saviour
Beginnings
Shell
Abyss
Below
Reflections
Blister
Coming
Stare
Figure 8