AAR debut album & college memories (Day 4)

Nostalgia, especially regarding my time in college, usually gives me a pick-me-up because those were some of the most care-free and enjoyable times of my life.

One album that I can not listen to without thinking back to that time in my life (it is definitely not a timeless album for that very reason - it is forever stuck in the first half of the last decade) is the debut album by All American Rejects.

The album starts off well with My Paper Heart and sets the stage for what the album will be.  The second song Your Star has a great chorus that seems to sort of sit back in the beat, while the rest of the song is more straight forward and driving, and I love the falsetto vocals.

Swing, Swing is the obvious standout from this album and still holds up well today.  Who would have ever thought I'd love listening to someone sing about all of their issues and problems in dating with a staccato vocal style this much?  Regarding heartbreak, Tyson Ritter understands both sides of the relationship and throws in both viewpoints at different points on the album. 

On Time Stands Still there's a great Moog synth-type sound and the transition from that song to One More Sad Song is fantastic! I love it and the pop/punk driving eighth note guitar part that is on full display here.  All-in-all this is a really solid debut album and the rest of the songs hit on all the same points and fill it out nicely. 

I really appreciate the level of orchestration that they incorporate into the song structure for nearly every track on this album.  I mean they are throwing in keyboards, strings, chimes - you name it, they will try and use it - and, most impressively, pretty much replicated the sounds from this album live in concert.  I saw them perform back on the Warped Tour in 2004 - on the Warped Tour, not at a classy auditorium on Main Street in some major city - and they had a rack of chimes on stage.  One of the dudes was up there with a mallet wailing away on those things while they were playing the last song from their debut album 'The Last Song' and that is definitely my enduring memory from that show!