Stavesacre ‎– (stāvz'ā'kər)

8/10

The autumn of 2002 was a strange time in the Christian rock scene. In the previous decade, Christian bands like DC Talk and Jars of Clay hit it big, with songs like "Jesus Freak" and "Flood" receiving major play on secular rock stations across America. This opened up room in the margins, as hardcore, metal, and punk bands with Christian roots seemed to suddenly bloom everywhere. Bands like Zao and MxPx garnered major cred and critical clout in their respective genres, record labels like Tooth & Nail and Forefront started pumping out great bands and selling records like hotcakes, making way for smaller labels like Facedown, Northern, and Floodgate, who featured yet even more great bands. Perhaps this all built to some sort of apex commercial exposure with the release of P.O.D.'s Satellite in the fall of 2001. P.O.D. began their career on the underground label, Rescue Records (also once the home of N.I.V. and Dogwood), before transitioning from Tooth & Nail to the major of major record labels, Atlantic. Satellite, the band's second release on Atlantic, sold seven million copies. This created an immediate buzz in the Christian rock industry--with P.O.D.'s huge breakthrough, which band's turn would come next?
At 2002's Cornerstone Festival, night three on main stage was a veritable who's who of "The Next Big Christian Hard Rock Band to Break Into the Mainstream." The main event that night was Project 86, who had recently signed to Atlantic Records, just like P.O.D. Project 86 frontman, Andrew Schwab, certainly did the largest amount of grandstanding that night, repeatedly telling the audience that his band was about to release the album of their very lives, and repeatedly asking the crowd to repeat its release date, September 24 (he said it enough times that the date is frozen in my head 17 years later). Turns out Schwab may have been feeling a little desperate, as Atlantic had burned $750K recording that album, Truthless Heroes, only to decide not to promote it. Though the band had built a huge fan-cred cache with their excellent 2000 Tooth & Nail release, Drawing Black Lines, they lost some of it that night with Schwab's seemingly odd behavior, and a lot more of it on September 24th. They'd spend the next few years, after getting dropped from Atlantic, trying to get their underground credit back before effectively splintering and turning into an Andrew Schwab solo project by the end of the decade. Though Schwab announced from the Cornerstone stage that night that the band would no longer be playing Christian festivals, the band were back at Cornerstone just two years later.
Blindside, a hardcore band from Sweden, played immediately before Project. Blindside were mainly known for their electric tours with P.O.D., and were not yet well known for recorded output, though their second release on Solid State Records, A Thought Crushed My Mind, is...I really like that album. Blindside, with the aid of P.O.D., had recently been signed to Elektra records, and had suddenly gone from a band who'd recorded songs in people's attics in Sweden, to label-mates with Metallica. Blindside's transition to a major label ended up softening the band's heavy sound a bit, but it also got it into far more ears, increasing the band's popularity vastly, earning them an appearance on Conan(!), and endearing them to both secular and Christian audiences, as the band never once made any sort of declaration as to where they would or wouldn't play.
Aaaaaand, hitting the stage before Blindside, the object of this review, Stavesacre. Like Project 86 and Blindside, Stavesacre had released a landmark album on a Christian label just a few years before, in their case 1999's Speakeasy, had also now signed to a larger secular label, and were set to explode. Stavesacre, being more of a meat-and-potatoes rock band than Project 86 and Blindside, didn't have the then new and popular hook of screaming, or nu-metal adjacency. Thus, they didn't quite have the label-selling power of Blindside or Project. However, Stavesacre did find themselves on Nitro Records, who had housed such bands as AFI, The Aquabats, and The Offspring, so there was certainly some excitement that the band could find themselves on a higher stage soon. One stage Stavesacre said they wouldn't find themselves on again soon, though, was the Cornerstone one. Frontman, Mark Salomon, made the declaration from the stage, "No more Christian festivals, no more church shows. This is the last one." While Stavesacre's set was absolutely great, full of energy and just as technically proficient as their albums, when Salomon popped up during Project 86's set, and Schwab made the same "No more Christian shows" declaration, much of the crowd couldn't help but feel a little bit punk'd.
"We're your biggest supporters. We were the first ones to come to your shows and buy your records. We love coming these festivals to see you play. Why don't you want to play for us?"
Whatever the case, that fall proved to be a confusing time. A year removed from 9/11, and a spring away from invading Iraq under false-pretenses, while all your favorite bands seemed to be rejecting you, it was a weird time to be a college junior into that particular subculture. Also, a lot of other weird stuff was happening in my life, like I had a stalker, and I was stuck in a familial cult, a police officer propositioned me, and also, there were a couple of hurricanes, but that's neither here nor there. Let's talk about Stavesacre's essentially self-titled 2002 album, (stāvz'ā'kər)...a conversation with myself that will be much shorter than the above.
(stāvz'ā'kər) immediately sounds and feels smaller and lighter than Stavesacre's previous work, particularly Speakeasy. The album kicks off with "Witch Trial," whose intro sounds quite similar to A Perfect Circle's "The Hollow," released just two year before. It's a rocking song, with a sweet lyrical callback to a past Stavesacre song, but with rawer production work than the band have been known for in the past. This leads into the moodier, but equally rocking "Blind Hope." The song's got a big, explosive chorus, even if it would benefit from smoother production and a better recording. Next up is another rocker, "Alice Wishlist," which features a big, fun, fist-pumping guitar solo. So far, so good. The production is a step down, and (stāvz'ā'kər) doesn't feel nearly as epic as Speakeasy, but hey we're only three tracks in, and...HEY WHAT IS THIS?!
Track four is "Island," which was on the band's 2001 Split/e.p. with Denison Marrs. It's a re-recorded version, but still...it's material the fan has heard before...and to add insult to injury, all three of the songs from that E.P. are on this 11-track album. After "A Place Where I Can Breathe" and "If Not Now" offer up some new material on par with the opening trio, it's time for re-recorded versions of "Night Town" and "Sad Parade," and then there are only three songs to go.
"Why Good People Suffer" offers up some good points in a hard-rocking, rapid-fire fashion, then it's on to "Yes," a beautiful ballad featuring Fielding's Beth Palmer. "Yes" is (stāvz'ā'kər)'s standout, a unique and gorgeous track obviously inspired by the band's experience recording a stripped down version of "Gold and Silver" for the previous year's Collective. Palmer's instrumental contributions (she plays violin, viola, and cello) are excellent, and her wistful vocals blend perfectly with Salomon's.
No one's ever accused me of not being over-dramatic. The playlist I made for the autumn of 2002 is called Lost in a Treeless Forest, and "Yes" made the cut, part of a melancholy series of closers, which you can see featured below.
And now the album is already over with "World to Wait," a suitably epic closer, outside of how a cool instrumental bridge builds to the awkward lyric, "All you've built and done is just a fraction of the you we love," which conjures images of the gnarly, bearded band giving you a group hug. Something more universal might have worked a little better there.
At the time of its release, I was very disappointed with (stāvz'ā'kər). That time in life was already so confusing. Why couldn't Stavesacre just provide me with another classic to remember like Speakeasy? As I now listen to (stāvz'ā'kər) 17 years removed from that fall, my life now far more complex, my worries far more complicated, and after years of experiencing crap like Nickelback and Hinder blow up on radio, then witnessing rock radio disappear completely, I can appreciate Stavesacre's nearly self-titled album a lot more. In fact, in some ways, I pity (stāvz'ā'kər) for the expectations placed upon it.
Poor (stāvz'ā'kər). Even Mark Salomon distanced himself from it soon after it was released, telling HM Magazine in 2006, "We have to go with what we have, which is: we’ve always been known for the production of the album. We’ve been known for writing creative songs, as opposed to, not necessarily…how can I say…Stavesacre puts out good-sounding records that are creative within the genre that we play. And that fourth album wasn’t that, pretty much the bottom line." Ouch!
What I hear now, though, is a very solid rock album. (stāvz'ā'kər) might not feature the greatest production or strongest songwriting of Stavesacre's career, but it's absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. The autumn of 2002 was a weird time for everybody. At least I came out of it with this awesome playlist:



2002 Nitro Records
1. Witch Trial 3:33
2. Blind Hope 4:39
3. Alice Wishlist 4:07
4. Island 3:59
5. A Place Where I Can Breathe 4:29
6. If Not Now 3:41
7. Night Town 4:05
8. The Sad Parade 4:46
9. Why Good People Suffer 3:32
10. Yes (Backing Vocals, Violin, Viola, Cello – Beth Palmer) 5:26
11. World To Wait 4:18