Review Summary: Impressive debut, mainstream alternative rock at its best!
Safetysuit is a four member alternative rock band that, while not receiving huge popularity at this moment, established well enough on the music charts with their major label debut album “Life Let To Go” in 2008, featuring the singles “Someone Like You”, “Stay” and their latest “Annie”, all currently receiving airplay on radios across the US and the former picking at #15 on the Alternative Rock chart at the time of its release.
I remember searching for new music on websites and I stumble upon this band when checking another group called Parachute, it was listed on the similar artists’ page and I listened to the previews right away. I felt quite surprised to see how different this was from the other bands listed next to this one.
That happened a couple of years ago and I still have the CD next to my computer, it’s a very entertaining listen but this album is so much more than that. First of all Doug Brown, the singer, has great vocals and he takes advantage of it shifting styles through all the songs from “Someone Like You” to “Life Left To Go”. As for the rest of the band they have great musicianship, the guitars are good throwing in very inspiring melodies and the bass follows good but the drummer in my opinion is the key on most of the songs because he is so noticeable and it’s not all about production values, the drumming technique can’t be unnoticed.
This album kicks off quite energetic with “Somebody Like You”; a very upbeat song that sounds like if Breaking Benjamin turned a little more poppy or alternative and this does not stop because almost everything in here has that energy but with different approaches, for example “Down” is another good rocker only this time the band resonates a vigorous 3 Doors Down. But don’t get me wrong, these guys are not like those bands, they have their own touches, listen to “Stay”, “Anywhere But Here” and “What If”, the guitarists incorporate classic rock riffs making these particular songs their way out of the usual.
Also, is worth mentioning how good the ballads are, those are certainly strong points because between all of the power rock songs these particular melodious pieces add a great feel, and especially in this aspect they can resemble somehow to Switchfoot. To that experience it sums up the arrangements and I’m not only talking about the softer tracks, you can hear those violins in power rock songs like “Something I Said”.
My only problem resides on the lyrical part, they’re all about love songs and relationship issues, I mean, it’s not depressing but there’s a lot of melancholy accompanied with some clichéd lines, at least it’s not corny enough to ruin the overall feel.
So it doesn’t matter the genre, it matters that a band understands it, innovates it and performs it well, and this guys accomplish all those aspects, so much that I suspect these songs were made long before the album release. All I can do is having high hopes for their next release because after this debut they really seem to have a bright future in the music industry.
It’s hard to point out the best songs because nothing in here is disappointing, so here are the tracks that may hook any new listener:
- Someone Like You
- Annie
- Anywhere But Here
- Something I Said
- Apology
