Saving Abel - Saving Abel CD Canadian Tour Edition

Saving Abel
Saving Abel – Canadian Tour Edition
Virgin
AISN B001SGEUQA (Tour Edition)
AISN B0013FSVD4 (original release)

I picked up this album on a whim. The cover of the Canadian Tour Edition caught my attention, and the fact that they were touring with and opening for Nickelback made it an intriguing endeavor. When I go to review and album, I tend to listen to nothing but it for a week or so and immerse myself in the sound, lyrics and mood of the album, both as individual pieces of music and as a collective cohesive whole. As such this is the only CD that has been in my car for a week now, and the mp3’s I have listed to off and on all day at work.

At first I thought it was an ok album. Good sound, interesting lyrics and overall ok. I was not disappointed but at first I was not amazed either. That changed about the second day. The more I listed to the album, and assessed it as a whole the more impressed I became with the artists who created this work. The band formed in 2004 in Corinth Mississippi. It is composed of and eclectic electric sound of the lineup of guitarist Scott Bartlett, bassist Eric Taylor, and drummer Blake Dixon, lead singer Jared Weeks and Jason .

The sound is not as heavy or dark as Nickelback, and for a band with their first big album they have a sound that is uniquely their own. The lyrics are poignant and moving, from the ballad’s Drowning and Sailed Away to the rock anthems of In God’s Eyes and Beautiful You. The sound goes from soft to hard to very hard rock, yet remains a unified whole. I am greatly impressed with this first studio release from Saving Able. It is a great album for driving, partying or just hanging out and studying, or for hanging on the back porch with some friends, some brews on the long summer evenings. It has an explicit lyrics warning on the album, but compared Nickelback’s Dark Horse this album is very tame in it’s lyrics. More hint and innuendo rather than blunt explicit content.

The difference between the Canadian tour edition and the standard edition is an extra slip case cover with different cover art, and a second ep CD with 3 songs, acoustic versions of 18 Days, Addicted and exclusive content release of Only Human. The greatest strength of this album is every artist is featured on different pieces and different parts of some songs. The band is a collective and each member is a strength, where the sum of the parts if greater than the whole. Overall a terribly impressive first album!

(First published in Imprint 2009-04-03.)