I've never been a huge fan of Sanctus Real. It's hard to say why - this chunky pop/rock group seemed talented enough from the get-go, existing in the musical space between Relient K and Switchfoot as they riffed and roared their way into the hearts of Christian youth groups and college students nationwide. Nothing seemed particularly wrong with them - Matt Hammit put his reedy but powerful voice to good use on most of their songs, Chris Rohman came up with some pretty addictive riffs, and the band's rhythm section wasn't made up of slouches, either. And their lyrics, while generally not attention-getting, weren't terrible either. They seemed like a good candidate for a solid ear candy band. But aside from a song here and there ("Inspiration", "Change Me", the ferocious power pop gem "Everything About You"), nothing they did seemed to really stick with me. I didn't feel compelled to buy an album of theirs. But that all changed this year.

What's funny is that I certainly didn't expect that trend to change the first few times I listen to The Face of Love, the group's third album. Somebody had pointed me to a link where I could download the pre-release, so while most of the world didn't get it until April, I had been processing it since about January. And honestly, I found the disc to be quite boring. Past Sanctus Real albums could usually hook me with their slew of solid, upbeat tunes - they struck me as the type of band that would be fun to rock out to and pretend I was 17 again. But this album? It started slow, and largely stayed that way. Early reports were labelling it as a "maturing" of the group's sound. Call me crazy, but just because you play songs in slower tempos doesn't mean that you've arrived at musical adulthood. Making music that might lose the patience of some of the younger crowd doesn't guarantee that adults will find it to be meaningful. And really, the change isn't all that drastic; it's just that the typical Sanctus Real rockers kind of blend into the middle of the album, camouflaged by the more contemplative songs that surround them.

But wait! One by one, several of the tracks on this disc started to spring up and ask politely for my attention. First it was the title track, a glowing anthem that managed to soar emotionally while also challenging me as a listener. Then the album's first track sank in, causing me to wonder how I had mistaken its medium tempo for a lack of power. Finally, a few other songs wormed their way into my brain - there wasn't a lack of hooks here, they just weren't all as obvious as before. And I can respect a band that still knows how to make savvy pop/rock music without going for the jugular every time. There's a good amount of thoughtfulness scattered throughout The Face of Love, enough so that I've gone from being so bored that I never thought I'd listen to the album again, to being strangely addicted to it. Face is by no means perfect, since it still has a rather dull back half, but it comes out of the gate really strong, and shows that the band has potential. After all, it was only 6 or 7 years ago that I found myself mildly amused, but not terribly excited, about a young band called Switchfoot.

I'm Not Alright
If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of
Then cool is just how far we have to fall...
I bring up Switchfoot intentionally, because it's this first song that makes me think they might have potential to go places the way Switchfoot did a few years ago with a little song called "I Dare You to Move". The way this one opens up feels like an electrified version of the acoustic stream-of-consciousness at the beginning of "Dare", and I think it has a similarly powerful message to it. Don't get fooled by the verse seeming a bit dry and unimpressive at first - that's merely the weary setup for a really strong chorus. Matt Hammit's voice can sound as unassuming as Jon Foreman's when he's being quiet and thoughtful, but when he belts it out, he might just outdo Jon In the vocal department. This song is one of those that states the obvious - that none of us is perfect and we should stop pretending that Christians should look perfect to each other - in a way that makes realize we've been ignoring the obvious. It actually started off as a song that simply stated "I'll be fine", but somewhere along the way, the band realized (thankfully) what typical Christian radio crap that would be. Not that God doesn't look out for us when we're in need, but at the same time, we're all a work in progress, and we've got to be able to admit to each other that we're messed up. The thickness of the drums and guitars in this song communicates that yearning to just let down the façade and acknowledge that God is shown to be strong in our weakness. There's a great little "Ka-pow!" moment where the drums kick back into the chorus after the bridge - it's probably one of the most exhilarating moments I've heard in any rock song this year, even if it's one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Eloquent
I'm difficult, argumentative
About as thick-skulled as the dinosaur bones
On a display in a glass case
I can't believe You haven't run away...
The way that the first song bleeds into this one makes me think of how "I Dare You to Move" bled into "Learning to Breathe", but the Switchfoot comparisons end here. Opening with its quirky, muted verse that takes a little bit before you catch onto the rhythm (hint: the first measure starts on "el-", not "-quent"), this song builds momentum nicely with its stomping, shuffling attitude, as Matt expresses surprise due to the fact that God hasn't become thoroughly annoyed with his stubborn idiocy and run screaming in the other direction by now. It's a light-hearted, humorous take on the concept of God's grace - you can't take any song too seriously that name-checks both King Kong and Back to the Future. I do wish that the bridge was more than a mere whisper, and the chorus said something a little stronger than "It must be different through Your eyes, 'cause You look at me like it's the first time You've ever seen my face", but it's still a fun song that ramps up the tempo in a semi-unorthodox way.

Fly
I'm overwhelmed when there's too much
Hiding the view to all that you've done
I step back to see how far we've come
And you're always with me...
I'm sure we've all heard more songs comparing spiritual maturity to aviation than we could count on the fingers and toes of our immediate families. So I'm not going to extol the virtues of this song's lyrics. That doesn't stop it from being one that I find myself coming back to time and again, despite a rhythm and a rather pedestrian strum pattern that seems too slow to be as powerful as it could have been. This one's all about melody and sonic fullness, and part of me really loves the way that chorus melody comes winding in, as well as the subdued but strong guitar solo that fits so snugly into the bridge section. Something about the increasing force of the guitars and drums makes it easy to visualize the struggle of "Trying to fly against the wind".

The Face of Love
You've been portrayed a thousand different ways
But my heart can see you better than my eyes
'Cause it's love that points the portrait of your life...
Here comes one of those songs that just melts me. The opening, with its slow synthetic wash and its gentle guitar chords that ring out into the corners of a vacant room, makes it easy to picture the "stained glass and colored lights" in which Matt has seen Jesus portrayed. I know exactly how this song's melodic trick works - base the song in one key (in this case, E) and then drop down to the seventh (D) instead of offering the expected fifth (B). (At least, I think that's the correct music theory analysis.) It gets me every time. But it isn't just that. It's something about the way that this song builds steam as Matt explains to us that these physical images of Jesus are well and good, but what really communicates the whole point of Christianity to the world is love, especially the kind that's given to those society views as "low" and who aren't in much of a position to give anything back. The bridge, which is eerily reminiscent of something Cliff Young from Caedmon's Call might have sung back in the Aaron Tate days, puts forth that challenge in crystal clear terms: "Give us the grace to change the world; no one too lost for me to love, no one too low for me to serve." It's one thing to just relish our religious paraphernalia and think we're being all holy for surrounding ourselves with images of Jesus; it's quite another to actually go out and act like Jesus would have acted to people who most of society would ignore. It's fitting, then, that the song echoes U2 in its sense of anthemic grandeur, since it represents the type of cause that good ol' Bono could get behind.

Don't Give Up
I heard you say you would love for a lifetime
Now you complain a lifetime just doesn't feel right for you
Another casualty of casual love
Another soul out of place, a heart that gave up...
I almost want to smack these guys for following that one up with a song that tells us, "Don't give up on love, and throw it all away". Honestly, that's a cliché that I could happily live the rest of my life without ever hearing again. But two factors save this song. The first is some nice, quick-handed and cymbal-heavy drumming from Mark Graalman that makes the verses feel like something special. The second is the verses themselves. While he lyrics are rather minimal as a whole, the band uses the few lines they've got to communicate pretty clearly that a marriage is what's in jeopardy here, simply because the person doesn't "feel right" any more. Being a newlywed, I guess that subject is close to my heart, because if I hadn't learned beforehand that marriages go through their periods of hardship and not always "feeling" something, I might have faced the temptation to bail out, too. I appreciate that the band can use a melodically solid song like this to endorse marriages that stick with it, without it coming across like cheap propaganda for the acronym-driven youth group campaign of the month.

We're Trying
Everyone wants reality, so here it is
I believe that nobody is good...
I think this song might be the strongest rocker on the album. It's probably the most immediate track of all of them, even if it doesn't come close to being another "Everything About You". (I really did love that song.) I'd say that the intro fakes me into thinking that it's gonna be Switchfoot's "Meant to Live" at first, but I already said that about Blindside's "Die Buying", and besides, how hard is it to come up with a guitar riff that starts with the same note three times in rapid succession? Anyway, Matt really gets to play around with the loud, raspy side of his voice here - he doesn't sound harsh, but he definitely kicks the intensity up a notch during the chorus when he cries, "We are LI-ars and THIEVES, we're de-STROY-ing the PEACE, but we're TRY-ing!" Something about the rhythm and the way he unabashedly proclaims all of our wretchedness just makes me smile from ear to ear. Probably because I'm tired of goodie-two-shoes Christian bands acting like they've got it all together. The point of it all, of course, is not just that we all suck and we're never gonna do anything but suck - it's that by God's grace, some pretty extraordinary stuff can still be done through us.

Thank You
I could find other lines that you haven't heard spoken over and over again
I've tried every way, but I keep landing on that simple phrase...
Here concludes the interesting and addictive front half of the album. From here on out, it's slim pickins. This mid-tempo track is an unfortunate gaffe that ambles along on a dull, chugging riff, reminding me of a full-band version of the insipidly simple "I Love You" from the group's first album. I'm generally not a big fan of songs where the basic idea is "this is a cliché, but if I acknowledge that it's a cliché and God knows I can't impress Him with my words anyway, then it's OK to write a three-minute pop song based around the cliché and sell it to people". That's basically what's going on here. The splash of cymbals and the general force of the chorus is nice, as is Matt's vocal performance (I can't find fault with that on most of these tracks), but the lyrics negate all that and make me think, "So what?" The random drumming that fades out after the song has finished doesn't really do anything to help matters, either - it's just kind of an odd production choice.

Magnetic
I know I have the freedom to decide
You don't make me love You
I just can't deny the force of gravity
And you are the ground that keeps me standing here with You...
Sometimes, you just know a song is going to suck from its first two seconds. That was my instinct the first time I heard this one, and while many of the other songs have grown on me a great deal. My instinct was right - this one starts off slow and wobbly, and the band stumbles through nearly five minutes of uninspired playing that makes it sound like they've all got hangovers. Except these guys probably don't drink, so let's pretend it's 8 AM on a Monday morning and nobody's had their coffee. I know they're going for slow and dreamy, but if you're going to make that style work, you have to do something other than a simple, "one, two, three four" on the drums and guitars with virtually nothing to syncopate or otherwise add color to it. The guitar solo in the middle of the song is actually compelling, but given that I have to sit through a few minutes of dumb magnetism metaphors to get to it, I think this one'll be getting the "skip" button a lot in the future. Please, just get it over with already, guys.

Possibilities
Remember the day when we ran away
And we saw the world for the first time?
We drove through the night to those big city lights
And we knew that we could do anything...
The band ties to liven things up with a pair of rock songs here - hey, good timing. Though I think this one's more pop than rock - the guitars are front and center and everything's revved up, but the song just doesn't have the "crunch" factor or emotional gravity of some of their better rock songs. It's basically a cheery, breezy, looking-to-the-future type of song. Fun while it's playing, but we've all heard a million of these. I kind of like the rapid-fire drumming that shows up here and there, and the fun-loving guitar solo. But those things can be easily interchanged with several of the band's other songs.

Where We Belong
Can I learn to drop my guard and show someone my heart?
Break the vice of stereotypes that keep us apart
I'm no stranger to the feelings
Of being insecure and out of place...
This final rocker fares a little better. That's largely because Matt gives us another vocal on the chorus, where he very nearly screams, "Break away the walls!" There's a special punch and snap to the drums and the rhythm guitar here - the riffs are scratchier, and it feels like the kind of thing that you'd want to pogo up and down to. The song echoes the challenge of the title track in a slightly less poignant way: "Make a way for us to follow grace, so we can love everyone the same." Yeah, lots of cliches here, but the song has its heart in the right place simply by virtue of not doing the "Us vs. Them" thing that the band previously fell into on songs like "Message".

Benjamin
Rain falls outside
I think the sky must know what's happening tonight
Children born while fathers die
It's that circle of life that we all live in time...
The album concludes with a rather sparse acoustic ballad - there's another pop/rock cliché for you. Not that mellow songs are bad, but after really listening to this one and realizing the emotional depth of the situation that inspired it, I feel bad that they couldn't have come up with music that would draw more attention to this story. We learn as the acoustic guitar is slowly, quietly strummed and picked that a baby named Benjamin was born to one of the band members on or around the same day that his father died. The chorus does a tricky change of subject despite keeping the lyrics mostly the same - the lyric, "If you can't talk, just cry" first refers to a dying man who is perhaps too far gone to say much, and then the second time around, it refers to an infant, for whom screaming at the top of his lungs is the only way to really communicate with the parental units. I was actually quite touched by these lyrics when, coincidentally, I listened to the album on the same day that I found out a couple I was close friends with in college had given birth to a baby named Benjamin. But, sentimentality aside, there's not much pulling me back to that song. It starts to morph from coffeehouse dregs to warmed-over Coldplay when the piano and repetitive guitar solo work their way in, and amusingly, the line "When He gives, He takes, and He makes us stronger" reminds me a lot of a line from Sufjan Stevens' "Casimir Pulaski Day". But Sanctus Real just doesn't do slow tempos that well, at least not when it's in 4/4.

Maybe the bad will figure out on their next outing that "maturity" doesn't have to mean abandoning a catchy, in-your-face approach. That stuff isn't only for the youth groups, after all. I like that the band had the guts to not go for the obvious grab-'em-in-ten-seconds hooks on every song, choosing instead to let things open up more casually and thoughtfully, allowing the middle of most of these songs to be where the hooks really sink in. It's a balance - you want to experiment with the way you craft songs, but you don't want to totally throw away what works for you. Sanctus Real has shown a good amount of balance between being a heartfelt, serious band and a fun-loving one - let's hope they realize that the two concepts don't have to be mutually exclusive.

ALBUM WORTH:
I'm Not Alright $2
Eloquent $1.50
Fly $1.50
The Face of Love $2
Don't Give Up $1
We're Trying $1
Thank You $0
Magnetic -$.50
Possibilities $.50
Where We Belong $1
Benjamin $.50
TOTAL: $10.50

Band Members:
Matt Hammit: Vocals, guitar
Chris Rohman: Guitar
Mark Graalman: Drums
Dan Gartley: Bass

Website: http://www.sanctusreal.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving