Stay What You Are

by

Saves the Day

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A few days ago, I was flipping through my ever expanding CD collection, and came accross one of my first "emo" CD's, Save the Day's "Stay What You Are." I decided to give my old favorite a spin. Within seconds of hearing Chris Conley slowly singing, "This song will become the anthem of your underground...." to a single guitar, I quickly remembered why this album used to be my favorite.

The album opens slowly with "At Your Funeral." A minute into the song the band just starts rocking out; filling you with energy and preparing you for the rest of the album. While this album is an emo classic, it's subject matter tends to stray away from the typical "the-girl-left-me-i'm-such-a-worthless-looser" type lyrics you hear on other emo albums. Yes, relationships are talked about on this album, but along with that are songs about depression, death, and anorexia. SWYA shows how much the band has matured since, "Through Being Cool," their previous, and in my opinion, better album. However, not only is this album more mature, but it's sound is more polished than on TBC.

Every song on this CD is catchy and well written. Another great quality that this album possesses is the fact that you can listen to it any time of day in whatever mood your in. I disagree with those that say that STD sold out on this album. While it does have a poppier, more radio-friendly sound than their previous efforts, it proves to us that STD isn't afraid to expirament with their sound, which I believe is a quality that all bands should possess.

I highly recommend buying this CD, it's worth whatever you pay for it. I guarantee that it will be in your CD player for a long time.

Well, it's hard to say how I feel about this album. Before my first listen, I was expecting something much like the two songs I heard on the Vagrant Records sampler. After my first listen I was kind of surprised with the sound but also kind of bored. This does not sound like what I heard on the sampler. The songs here are much slower and some sound a bit darker. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing because I am willing to accept this for what it is- a pop album. We still have some of the boring "I miss my girlfriend so much" songs but there are some new themes as well. In "As Your Ghost Takes Flight," the lyrics depict a person nailing a supposed enemy to a wall with rusty spikes and, I quote: "Use bottles to catch their blood." I'm not sure if that was written as an attempt at vivid imagery or as an attempt to somehow show that this nice guy who sings songs about girls also has a darker, rougher side to him. Sorry, but I think the lyrics sound like something I might have written in the third grade. Everyone keeps telling me how emotional and heartfelt this band's lyrics are. Perhaps I'm missing it?