Saves The Day’s sixth studio album Under the Boards is part two of the band’s trilogy of self-discovery, including their previous album Sound the Alarm and the upcoming release of its conclusion, Daybreak. Under the Boards was co-produced by Saves The Day (original members Chris Conley and David Soloway along with Manuel Carrer and Durijah Lang and Marc Hudson and Eric Stenman) and proves that this band has come a long way since their high school days, yet have managed to maintain their characteristic sound.

The first track, which shares the album’s name, is a solid transition between the rage-filled songs of Sound the Alarm to Under the Boards continual tone of desolation. Introducing melodic duel vocals singing beautifully sad lyrics, “I want to lie/below the weight of the sky” with simple guitar work, yet the most unique Saves The Day has ever done. The song seeps beneath your skin and leaves a haunting feeling to take with you through the entire album. The song segues straight into a more upbeat tune, “Radio” which seemed to be a reach into the Through Being Cool days and didn’t’ seem to fit within this album.

One of the tracks that stood out for me, mainly due to the vocals—Chris Conley is finally using the high-pitched voice for good and not evil—was “Can’t Stay the Same.” The song is fairly straightforward yet the chorus is perfectly endearing even through its surrounding themes of pain and death. “Get Fucked Up” seems like a familiar Saves The Day song and could be the next “Freakish,” but in fact it is even better. Their musical maturity is displayed with an excellent drum and guitar break down towards the end of song. Drummer, Durijah Lang has definitely brought his talents from Glassjaw, and gives the drums predominate role in this trilogy, which is nice to hear from a band that loves acoustic guitars.

Hands-down, the most interesting track on the album is “Getaway.” The first twenty seconds is literally something you would hear in an elevator in some Hawaiian resort, consisting of an aesthetically pleasing guitar. The atmosphere is suddenly disrupted with an explosion of invigorating drums and intense guitar riffs. The song triumphs with some of the most depressing lyrics next to the late Ian Curtis of Joy Division, “I don’t need nobody, not at all/’cause I’m going to end it all in the light at the break of dawn.” Just when you think the oddities of this track have dispersed a tribal chant of “oogacha” interrupts the song, which was almost too weird for my taste but served as a good buildup for the last chorus. Honestly I did not like “Getaway” the first time I heard it, but it shortly became my favorite track. It was just too unique to deny, and was full of the same charged energy that I loved in Sound the Alarm.

The last track of the album is almost like an epilogue because the character is “stuck under the boards again” but this time he is trying to escape this despair and the song leaves an optimistic feeling that will surely be reflected in the final album. Saves the Day truly put their heart and souls into this album and it is an interesting look into the complicated mind of Chris Conley.

Rating: Four out of Five Dragons