Switchfoot - New Way to Be Human

In short: the foundation that made Switchfoot great

Before A Walk to Remember was a movie, before they got all this (much deserved) publicity and before they were played on pop radio, Switchfoot was gaining a following in Christian music as one of the best pop outfits in years. Their second album (for those of you who just heard of them, this was two albums before "Beautiful Letdown") was a new standard in pop-rock Christian music that brought them musically to where they are today...a genre-defining band with an unflinching faith.

New Way is one of those albums that you just have fun listening to. "Company Car," "Something More," and "I Turn Everything Over" is total rock rowdiness. And, lest you think they are only about loud guitars, we are also given the incomparable worship of "Let That Be Enough" and the song later covered by Mandy Moore in the previously mentioned movie, the gem "Only Hope."

I'm not going to tout how I knew about these guys and have been listening to them since the mid-nineties. I won't brag about being a fan before the bandwagon started rolling. Instead, I'll leave it at this: to really understand what these guys are about, to hear their hearts, you simply must hear this album. "Beautiful Letdown" is a great album, don't get me wrong. It's fantastic. But where Letdown is musically phenomenal, New Way to Be Human is phenomenally challenging. It moves you in a different way. You feel a real connection to this message, and you're held tight to the last note.

And by the way, I knew about these guys long before most of the rest of you did. So nannie nannie boo-boo.