Switchfoot -- The Legend of Chin

8/10

I discovered Switchfoot's debut, The Legend of Chin, in my radio station CD binder--yes, back in 2002, we played music straight from CD's to the airwaves. While I had enjoyed Switchfoot's third album, Learning to Breathe, which was the only of their albums I'd actually heard, I had a strange hangup about debut albums. In my mind, I imagined debuts as the badly recorded work of inexperienced amateurs.
Late that summer, my brother and I were planning on taking I-12 and crossing the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway (the longest bridge over water in the world) to visit New Orleans' D-Day Museum (now the WWII Museum). Such a road trip needed music, and as I thumbed through the second of Soulglow's two legendary CD binders, out stood The Legend of Chin. Imagine my surprise when the album's first song kicked off with a fairly complex bassline and plenty of atmosphere. As the full band came in,I suddenly realized that debut-album-era Switchfoot were no rookies...and that my hangup was stupid.
Throughout The Legend of Chin, Switchfoot show off musical creativity and variety. Far from a simplistic, straightforward rock album, The Legend of Chin actually has more in common with the alternative indie rock of the late 90's...which makes since, as it was released in 1997. Sure, there are tracks with a slightly rawer rock sound, but the majority of the songs here are fairly sophisticated. Track three, "Underwater" has a bass and Rhodes piano jazz breakdown, and some atmospheric vocals by frontman, Jon Foreman. Even in the following song, "Edge of My Seat," a more uptempo rock track, Foreman's guitar-work is far from power chord chugging--he's dropping jazz chords left and right. There's a reason Foreman won a Les Paul Horizon Award just a few years after The Legend of Chin's release. In fact, strangely enough, this music is more instrumentally diverse than the band's later work, when and after they found major mainstream success. There's even a heaping helping of well-placed strings, and space in these songs. Perhaps Foreman felt like the style of this earlier work wasn't populist enough to hold a larger audience's attention?
Whatever the case, The Legend of Chin, surprises throughout, and actually sets the stage for the band's future breakout. The 2002 Nicholas Sparks tearjerker adaptation, A Walk to Remember, prominently features ...Chin's ninth track, "You," an emotionally heavy, but lovely ballad that perfectly suits a scene where Shane West drives around...emotionally. That's not the only Switchfoot song the movie features, but I'll get to that in the next review.
Also, New Orleans' WWII Museum is the best museum in the South.


1997 re:think Records
1. Bomb 2:46
2. Chem 6A 3:11
3. Underwater 3:46
4. Edge of My Seat 2:47
5. Home 4:03
6. Might Have Ben Hur 2:38
7. Concrete Girl 5:05
8. Life and Love and Why 2:52
9. You 4:13
10. Ode to Chin 2:15
11. Don't Be There 4:22