Relient K

Matt Thiessen and the Relient K boys are back with their seventh full-length album. And it is different, that’s for sure. They continue a trajectory away from the punk rock sounds of their youth and toward a much more mature and full alternative rock sound. In the last ten years, this band – led by founding members Thiessen and guitarist Matt Hoopes – has moved from being Christian music’s goofy and witty kids to a more mainstream maturity in 2007’s Five Score and Seven Years Ago. Now with Forget and Not Slow Down, they break new ground; it remains to be seen if fans will follow them.

Hate to break it to you, but this album’s offerings aren’t much like “Sadie Hawkins Dance” or “In Love with the Eighties.” Those songs will remain forever to be butchered by vans of middle school youth groups on their way to camp, but you won’t find any of those types of songs here. What you do have is a picture of “a rough time,” as we tend to put it delicately. Thiessen had his heart shattered, so what did he do? He withdrew to a cabin, wrote songs, and consequently produced an album along with Mark Lee Townsend (longtime Relient K producer and father-in-law of Hoopes), with his heartbreak and subsequent mending attempts displayed for Relient K fans to hear.

Forget and Not Slow Down sounds like a break-up album, but leaving it at that would be to dismiss other endings; the album also speaks of the conclusion of dreams, experiences, and pathways. The question these songs ask is: how do you move on? While this album reflects the sadness of the end, it’s also more than aware of the next beginning. The title track of the album says “I’d rather forget and not slow down/ Than gather regret for the things I can’t change now.” This is a record of motion, of going without necessarily knowing where. Because of this, the tone is kept from despair and the album becomes accessible for anyone who has ever experienced any kind of ending.

Setting aside the lyrical offerings for the moment, Forget and Not Slow Down showcases a new musical maturity for Relient K, only hinted at with their last album. Every song boasts an incredibly full sound and wonderful musicality. The band – currently consisting of two to three guitars, a bass, a piano, drums, and multiple background vocals – uses all of those elements to their ultimate advantage, with the instruments never overwhelming the vocals or vice versa. The sound blends together in such a way that the entire album can be seen as one cohesive unit. I’m thrilled with the new addition of Ethan Luck (formerly of the O.C. Supertones and Demon Hunter) behind the drums. Even Thiessen’s vocals sound more mature.

This maturity makes sense. Thiessen is no longer an 18-year-old writing songs about dances and college; he’s a 29-year-old writing about real life failures and pains. The lyrics of the songs still boast wit and cleverness with plenty of puns and repetitions. This cleverness just doesn’t manifest itself so shallowly in many cultural references (save a mention of Say Anything) and goofy interludes.

That doesn’t mean the boys in Relient K can’t have some fun. “Candlelight” is a cheesy and peppy love song that features the not-often-loved moth over a ringing guitar riff. “Savannah,” another love song, has delightful syncopation in the guitar part, creating a Latin spice, and boasting impossibly long lines that somehow work within the frame of the song. “Sahara” is a fun ‘who’s singing now?’ tune, as Tim Skipper (House of Heroes), Aaron Gillespie (Underoath, The Almost), and Matt MacDonald all lend a hand, sharing lead vocals, their rougher voices giving the song a different feel than Thiessen’s smooth vocals normally do.

Beyond just musically, Relient K has created cohesion of the entire album through an overarching tone and lyrical themes. Multiple songs mention heat and lions/pride, while the first track (”Forget and Not Slow Down”), the middle track (number eight – “Over It”), and the final song (”This is the End [If You Want It]“) all have references to forgetting and slowing.

This is not a perfect album by any means, and much of how you feel about the album is influenced by your expectations prior to hearing the first note. If you are expecting a more upbeat style of music and lyric, you’re going to be disappointed. And if you’re expecting a lot of explicit (or even implicit) references to Christian faith, you might be disappointed as well. This album can be quite dark in spots. But there is hope within and a challenge to move on despite what life throws at you. It seems that is a challenge that Thiessen and his bandmates have accepted, and hearing them discover what that looks like through song is what makes this album both honest and just plain good.

Tagged as: Forget and Not Slow Down, Relient K

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