Jon Foreman is truly a prolific man. You probably know him best as the slightly tattered but highly spirited lead vox for Switchfoot, a band bent on causing its listeners to ponder a way out of their personal existential crises to the tunes of some of the catchiest radio singles known to man. And they've been one of my favorite bands for years now, but it took quite a bit of time for me to appreciate Foreman's voice. I liked the music, and I liked the philosophical approach to expressing their Christian beliefs in the form of everyday questions and curious little paradoxes about life and death. The vocals were good when a shout or a yowl or a raspy-throated rant about the meaninglessness of the material world was called for, but on the ballads, Foreman sounded a bit strained. Eventually I came to accept this imperfection as an expression of vulnerability. And strangely enough, it works to Foreman's advantage on the 4-disc solo project that he unveiled late last year.

As much of a Switchfoot fan as I've become over the course of their six albums, I wasn't quite hardcore enough to get excited when Jon Foreman announced that he would be working on a series of 6-song EPs dedicated to each of the four seasons, all of which would be rather sparse and acoustic in nature. I appreciated Switchfoot for the quirky way in which they functioned as a full unit, and it seemed that stripping it back to one man and his guitar would remove a lot of the elements that drew me to Foreman's music in the first place. I was even more perturbed when the first of these EPs, titled Fall, became available for public consumption, and people began praising it, saying it was better than anything Switchfoot had put out in recent memory. I was still holding out for the project he was working on with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek fame; I didn't want to oversaturate my playlist with his voice. But I became more receptive when the second EP, Winter was released, and since the two saw physical release as a packaged deal, this seemed like an appropriate time to delve in, and get an album's worth of material out of the guy rather than a scant six songs. (The EPs were planned this way to bring more individual attention to each song and not give the listener a chance to tune out during the back half of a traditional-length album, but honestly I think the listener should be given more credit than that - people who are just skipping around looking for a catchy tune probably won't get that far into a mellow, acoustic solo record anyway.)

What I found was a strikingly personal project, one which justified its existence independent of Switchfoot, but which also seemed flawed, almost too plainspoken in its first incarnation, developing more variance on the second disc. Both Fall and Winter are fittingly melancholy, given that they focus on seasons during which deterioration and death are the natural course of things. Both show commendable improvement in the songwriting department, considering the themes that were beginning to grow stale on Switchfoot's albums. Sometimes being less conscious about the need to be "universal" in one's songwriting, and focusing in on more intimate thoughts and details, can ironically make your music seem more down-to-earth-and relatable. Despite the musical shortcomings, it seems to me that each of these discs lends greater context to the other - and the 4-disc project overall lends the greatest context to these first two discs. So I'll cover the sound and substance of Fall and Winter in separate halves of this review, and then come back to do Spring and Summer in the next installment. The project is certainly best appreciated when one can link the pieces together after having heard the full cycle of seasons - hence my choice to wait and review them all back-to-back.

FALL
We begin with the most critically acclaimed of the four EPs - a distinction which honestly baffle me, because to my ears it's the most monochromatic and least exciting. There's little to be found here besides the simple strumming (or occasionally, fluid finger picking, which is a little more agreeable to my ears) of Foreman's acoustic guitar, with the occasional light embellishment of horns, strings, piano, etc. It makes sense that a cycle of songs about pain and separation doesn't exactly lend itself to upbeat arrangements, but I'm not looking for fast tempos here, I'm looking for sonic variance, an aural painting that really evokes the vivid colors of the leaves turning red and orange and brown and the days getting shorter and cooler temperatures beginning to settle in. Occasionally, I glimpse this, but tonally, you could swap several songs from this set with those from Winter, and I wouldn't complain that any of them felt out of place. In short, Fall needs to be more distinctive. Lyrically, it's quite meaty, and it's admirably honest as well, and I think it's these qualities that have perhaps captivated Foreman's audience the most. I just have a tough time with all six of these songs being presented in a row, I guess. None of the other EPs present that same difficulty for me.

The Cure for Pain
So I'm not sure why it always flows downhill
Why broken cisterns never could stay filled
I've spent ten years singing gravity away
But the water keeps on falling from the sky...
The record opens with the a faint tone that sounds like something you might meditate to, before the simple guitar strumming picks up and the song becomes your basic four chords and the truth - interestingly, the lyrics seem to make this song a quiet, contemplative single to the loud, speedy, raucous title track from Oh! Gravity, as a downtrodden Foreman laments all of his failed attempts to be perfect and to escape pain. There's a lot of wisdom in this one, as he realizes that pain is not only an inevitable part of life, but also an essential path to salvation: "Oh my Lord, to suffer like You do! It would be a lie to run away." It's a striking antithesis to the false hope offered by a lot of Christian music, which seems to naively suggest that following Christ equals no more pain. There's a faint warmth added to this song by the subdued horns, but it's nothing that Sufjan Stevens hasn't done more strikingly. I like this one mainly for the message.

Southbound Train
Oh, well the wind starts to look like her hair
And the clouds in her bright blue eyes
As the sea and the shore fall and rise
Like her breast as she breathes by my side...
Opening with a mellow song wasn't a bad idea (and unavoidable on a record full of 'em), but following that song up with an even more sluggishly-paced one doesn't do Fall any favors. Foreman tries his best to create a wistful atmosphere with the steady, muted strum of his guitar attempting to imitate the rhythm of a train struggling its way up a hill, while a lone harmonica and a string section attempt to add a little drama. It's too low-key for only track two. It's a song that puts a personal spin on one of Foreman's favorite subjects - pondering where his real home is. He says some sweet things about the memory of his wife, who is there awaiting his return, and there's a part of him that has had his idea of "home" in its truest sense get a bit skewed by all of the traveling. The line "until we reach ocean side" is a nice touch, because those who know anything about the greater San Diego area know he's probably referring to the city of Oceanside, California, but it works as a non-specific place name, too. The song just needs a more striking arrangement to really sell the thoughts he's mulling over.

Lord, Save Me From Myself
The electric sun keeps shining
Ripen daughters of the chrome
Yea, this world is where I breathe
Let it never be called home...
A brighter strum pattern, interspersed with clever bits of finger-picking to make the individual notes ring out, is one immediate characteristic that helps this next tune to stand apart. There's a stronger sense of rhythm and momentum to this one - it's still delicately played, so as not to be jarringly out of place. Foreman's back to one of Switchfoot's old favorite topics here - the emptiness of carnal pursuits and the longing for something more meaningful and deep. He frets over his boredom with things like money and sex and so forth, capping it off each time with the reverent prayer found in the song's title. It's a bit repetitive, but it works well enough to be enjoyable.

Equally Skilled
The godly people are all gone
There's not one honest soul left alive here on the planet
We're all murderers and thieves
Setting traps here for even our brothers...
The next track is one of Foreman's deepest, theologically speaking, and yet one of his most frustrating on a musical level. It's a song that seems to want to flow along naturally in 4/4 time, but that keeps getting thrown off by Foreman's lyrics not quite fitting into the meter - so he just lets each line of lyrics hang out there until he feels like coming back around to repeat the melody again. It's not a very satisfying melody, either - it seems to sneak in sideways and meander around a bit for the entire song, only really picking up steam when he changes keys for the last verse. His subject matter is immensely satisfying - he laments the total depravity of mankind, himself included, and he longs for God to bring justice to those who have perverted it - even though he knows that along with that timely rescue will come a rebuke for his own hypocrisy. I like this, because so much of Christian music rails against outside oppressors and doesn't really seem to grasp the concept that we're all in this sin thing together. So basically Foreman's got himself a good Bible study here, with a so-so musical backdrop.

The Moon Is a Magnet
Somebody told me
That everyone's phony 'til somebody's lonely
I hope that you're lonely
I hope that you're only waiting to phone me...
The shortest track on Fall is a true oddball that sticks out at odd angles from the mostly sleepy collection of songs around it. Its status as a song cut from Oh! Gravity might give us a clue as to why it's so different, but it's not a huge, fuzzed-up rocker or anything. It just has a rhythm that's totally off its rocker, as Foreman picks out gentle guitar notes to match the melody in such a way that makes it extremely difficult to keep track of the "beat", while light but playful horns and woodwinds blurt their way around it. Even though this song has less than two minutes to make an impression, it manages to worm its way into my brain as I finally begin to catch on to the patterns amidst the chaos. It appears to be a song about mankind's addiction to phony love - and what this has to do with the magnetic powers of the moon is beyond me, but it's an interesting bit of abstract poetry.

My Love Goes Free
If you love her, let her go
She sings beautiful and slow
A tune that only caged birds know...
Sigh. We're back to a slow, plodding 4/4 again, this time with a lone piano as Foreman's musical accompaniment instead of expected guitar. There's a soft mournfulness to this song that does succeed in making me feel Foreman's emotions - it's about the difficulty of showing love to a person by giving them the freedom to leave you and knowing you might never see them again. He plays it too straight here - it's not that long of a song, but it feels really dragged out due to its repetitive structure. (The fact that this bothers me is interesting in light of my favorite songs on Winter, which are actually much more repetitive, but at the same time more musically interesting... well, I'll get to that soon enough.)

WINTER
It's almost fitting in some ways that Winter starts off feeling like an extension of Fall, just with an even starker approach, as the last gasps of life are snuffed out and a cold but strangely peaceful landscape begins to settle in. This EP is where Foreman's work turns a corner and starts to become more experimental, featuring an Eastern sort of atmosphere on a few tracks. It also features some of his most arresting lyrics, with Foreman's darkest song interestingly juxtaposed with a gentle song of worship and confession placed right beside it. It's this sort of variance that made the songs stand out to me more, and that softened my outlook on the project overall.

Learning How to Die
Hey everyone, I got nowhere to go
The grave is lazy, he takes our bodies slow...
The beginning of Winter actually feels like a case of deja vu to me, since the musical approach is so similar to "The Cure for Pain", and the theme of the song is similarly downtrodden. Once again, a musically indistinct song is saved by some rather striking lyrics. This time Jon imagines the future, what it'll be like to have some of his last conversations with a loved one while on his deathbed. He brings up the topic of death as something we don't like to discuss, and points out that life is really one big process of learning how to die - a process that we avoid by continually looking to acquire things. It still has to no end, no matter how much success you find... so is there a way to do this gracefully? Foreman seems to be gently suggesting that there might be.

Behind Your Eyes
I want to see us work, dear
To reach the other side
My treachery is love, dear
We're on both ends of the fight...
This brief song, with its brisk, finger-picked melody and its light rhythm galloping along (ironically making it feel a bit like a retread of "Lord, Save Me From Myself"), seems to explore the tension experienced after two lovers get into a nasty fight. Tempers have cooled, and the two of them are staring at each other, not knowing what to say, and just realizing that understanding each other means more than being right. "Would you let me see the world behind your eyes?" It's a sweet sentiment, but before I feel like it's been fully explored, the song comes to a rather abrupt close.

Somebody's Baby
She dreams about heaven, remembering hell
As the nightmare she visits and knows all too well
Every now and again, When she's sober
She brushes her teeth...
This would be the big tear-jerker of the album - and it's one of those litmus tests to see if you're really paying attention to the words, because the music is still in decidedly delicate folk territory. It actually flows a little better due to Foreman's choice of a 6/8 rhythm, and the melancholy touch of a cello just to help get the eyes all watery. The music alone would not earn the song an emotional response, but its lyrics, which describe a homeless woman (curiously named "November", nicknamed "Autumn" or "Fall", and yet this song is on Winter) who rants and raves at the people walking by, who she knows probably wish she didn't exist, are quite arresting. This character doesn't do anything to make herself likeable, but she shouts hard truths at the self-made members of the higher class (which, from her perspective, could be the middle class) who act like they're better than her, who might carelessly toss her a few coins that they know will just end up supporting a drug habit, but who don't dare to care for her as a fellow human being. This song makes me wince because it's supposed to. The kicker is the chorus, which reminds us that this tattered, smelly, disagreeable person thrown away by society is "somebody's baby girl, and she's somebody's baby still". That line stings even more when we find out the ultimate fate of this character. Hint: It's not a happy ending. The fact that Foreman refuses to wrap it up in a nice, neat little bow, is his way of saying, "We could have cared for her, but we didn't." And it causes the song to become an immediate, devastating standout after a long series of song ideas that had to struggle a bit to get noticed.

White as Snow
The sacrifices of our God
Are a broken and a contrite heart
Against You and You alone have I sinned...
Foreman dares to follow up that little punch in the gut with a lush little worship song culled straight from the Psalms - this is one of those things that Christian artists just don't do. I mean, they sing worship songs all the time, but it's very rare that the honest, blunt, soul-searching type of songwriting seen in "Somebody's Baby" collides with this simple, almost effortless approach that paraphrases Scripture just a little bit and sets it to a simple melody. I would probably hate this if not for the Eastern-tinged strings that wrap around the melody of this song, giving it a striking sense of beauty without going all happy and ruining the meditative mood. Worship, in Foreman's mind, seems to be connected to a sense of justice and mercy shown to those who don't seem to deserve it. His confession here is non-specific, since he's merely borrowing King David's words: "Would You create in me a clean heart, O God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation." But you rarely hear such honest admission of sin in the chart-topping variety of CCM praise songs. The sin confessed could be a failure to care for the less fortunate. It could be the pride of assuming one has a higher station in life that justifies sticking with the capital caste system. Or it could be something else entirely. But against all odds, these two songs are quite powerful when placed back-to-back.

I Am Still Running
You remember me before I learned to run
At the kissing tree before I learned my guns
We were seventeen, seventeen years young...
We go back to a more simplistic approach, as Foreman ponders his tendency to rebel against God and notes a lingering dissatisfaction, kind of like his own way of expressing U2's sentiment, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". There's an audible weariness to this song, and a repetitive structure that almost makes it function like a stripped-down Gospel number. The overtones are there in the melody - but Foreman sticks to his acoustic guitar and the slow crunch of its organic beat, and doesn't really play up the more soulful approach that it seems to beg for. I'm not sure what I would have preferred for him to do with it, actually, since an upbeat approach obviously wouldn't work here, either. But it feels a tad dry. A couple of awkward rhymes don't help it much, nor does the fact that it's surrounded by the two most musically exotic songs on the disc. It just plain feels out of place. Though I should note that there are some nice bits of slide guitar on this one.

In Love
This cross, my love
Is mine, my love
To bear, my love
To buy, my love...
The album's final song is its most otherworldly - Foreman completely trades in his traditional folk instrumentation for an unlikely instrumental pairing that sounds even more ancient. It's like being transported to a Japanese monastery circa a hell of a lot of centuries ago, due to the vaguely Asian-sounding dulcimer thingie... I can't put my finger on the exact name of the instrument, but it is gorgeous. As this instrument is plucked and bent and it gently meanders around on what sounds like an Eastern scale, the deep breathing of a bassoon (and possibly one or two other woodwinds) begins to make its way into the mix. This isn't a "song" in the traditional sense - it's a mantra, characterized by extremely brief thoughts, four syllables each, with nearly every second line being "in love" or "my love". Yet, for all of its sparse wording, it clearly points to the character of Christ, inviting us to find life as we partake of His death. I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that the everyman, folk music approach would have given way to such an unexpected experiment - it's a liturgy like none I've ever heard, and against all odds, it ends up being the most memorable song in the entire 2-disc collection. It concludes with no fanfare - as the final notes are plucked, you can hear things being shuffled around in the studio as Foreman wraps his work for the day and walks out of the room. (He already pulled that trick at the end of Learning to Breathe, but since it adds a "you are there" sort of feeling to an already intimate recording, I'll let it slide.)

So, my reaction to Fall and Winter as a whole is something like this: "Subtle... kind of plain... I'm trying to get into it... hey, that's different... ouch, that hurts! ... Whoa, that's really beautiful... Holy WOW, that's amazing!" Essentially, this "four seasons" project is getting better as it goes. And it would be a shame to stop here. So meet back up with me on the flipside, and we'll discuss Spring and Summer. (I'll write it up real soon... I promise.)

ALBUM WORTH:
The Cure for Pain $1
Southbound Train $.50
Lord, Save Me From Myself $1
Equally Skilled $1
The Moon Is a Magnet $1.50
My Love Goes Free $.50
Learning How to Die $1
Behind Your Eyes $.50
Somebody's Baby $2
White as Snow $1.50
I Am Still Running $.50
In Love $2
TOTAL: $13

Websites:
http://www.jonforeman.com
http://www.myspace.com/jonforeman

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying