Destination: Beautiful — Mae

Destination: Beautiful is the first full-length album by Mae, the band from Norfolk, Virginia. Tooth & Nail Records released it on February 25, 2003. It's eleven songs and a little under fifty minutes of warm, keyboard-lit emo and indie rock, the kind of record that sounds best with the windows down. It isn't the album Mae are best known for. That's The Everglow, two years later. But nearly everything that made Mae special is already here.

Where it came from

The name Mae stands for Multisensory Aesthetic Experience, as Sputnikmusic notes on its band page. Singer and guitarist Dave Elkins, credited as Dave Gimenez in the early reviews, and drummer Jacob Marshall were the band's two original members, according to HIP Video Promo. AllMusic lists Gimenez as his other name. You can read more on the Mae band page.

The record was made close to home. AllMusic lists Earthsound Recording in Chesapeake, Virginia, as the studio. The lineup leans on keyboards as much as guitars, and Rob Sweitzer's playing is all over it. Bobby Gorman at ThePunkSite called his keyboard parts "spectacular," especially the long solo that closes out "Sun."

What it sounds like

The album opens with "Embers and Envelopes," and it's the song most people still know. It starts quietly and then breaks open into a big, bright chorus. The British site Punktastic loved that "awesome opening," saying it "swirls and beats in the opening verse before slowly suckering you in to a gigantic chorus." The band made an official video for it, and it's the one to start with.

"This Time Is the Last Time" and "All Deliberate Speed" come next and keep the pace up. Josh Taylor at Jesus Freak Hideout said songs like the opener, "This Time Is the Last Time" and "Last Call" "move slowly and melodically through the verses before exploding in the choruses." That's the basic Mae move, and they do it well.

The Cleveland Scene heard "the summery jangle of Reckoning-era R.E.M." in "This Time Is the Last Time" and "Goodbye, Goodnight," and said "Embers and Envelopes" and "All Deliberate Speed" "shimmer with hooks as sugary and malleable as taffy." It's a good line, and it's accurate. These songs are sweet, but they're built carefully.

The songs run from just over three minutes for "Soundtrack for Our Movie" to nearly six for "Skyline Drive," according to Apple Music's listing. The middle of the record stretches out. "Sun" runs past five minutes and ends on that long keyboard solo. "Skyline Drive" is the longest song here, nearly six minutes, and Sputnikmusic users keep naming it as a favourite. MacKenzie Wilson at AllMusic picked out "Sun" and "the edgy 'Soundtrack for Our Movie'" for how Elkins sings in a way that's "boyishly charming while being self-deprecating," and singled out "the punchy 'Runaway.'" She also heard the 1980s all over it, writing that the band was "honed on classics of the 1980s (the Police, Depeche Mode, U2)."

"Summertime" was the first single, and it got its own video, directed by Liz Otis, according to HIP Video Promo, which pitched it to TV programmers in August 2003. It's the poppiest song on the album and sounds exactly like its title. The album closes with "Giving It Away" and "Goodbye, Goodnight," a gentle, drawn-out ending that fits the record's mood.

Faith and feeling

Mae came out of the Christian scene on a Christian label, but they didn't write worship songs. Taylor at Jesus Freak Hideout said the band brought "a depth to their lyrics and music that is unparalleled in the Christian market." He noted that most of the songs are about young love, with "subjects of redemption" in there too. What struck him was how hopeful it all is. Unlike most emo bands, he wrote, Mae "does not speak much on the subject of breakups, but rather, the joys of blooming relationships."

The Cleveland Scene put it another way, calling the lyrics "simultaneously secular and spiritual" and comparing the band's earnest choruses to early U2. That's a fair read. You don't need to share the band's faith to enjoy this album, but it's there under the surface, in its hope and its lack of bitterness.

What critics said

The Christian press was warm. Taylor called the album "articulately crafted and brilliantly delivered" and said "it is hard to find any fault in this young band." AllMusic was kind too. Wilson called it "an earnest and honest expression" and "simply enjoyable and enjoyably simple," and said the band was "a bit too brash to be exclusively pop, but not fully downhearted enough to be emo."

The pushback was mostly about originality and pace. Punktastic said the record "does borrow heavily from some of its peers" and argued that "Sun" and "Goodbye, Goodnight" lean hard on Jimmy Eat World. It also said the album was "simply too gooey for its own good." Gorman at ThePunkSite felt it lacked "a certain punch," and said much of it is "fairly slow," the kind of music you'd play when you have guests over and want to keep a gentle conversation going.

Even Jesus Freak Hideout came round to that view. When the site ranked it in its Top 100 Tooth & Nail albums, Chase Tremaine wrote that "it isn't hard to argue" it's "the weakest Mae album." He said many people "wrote off" the record in 2003 as "a pretty obvious knock-off of early Jimmy Eat World." But he argued it shows "brilliant ideas and beautiful soundscapes that were more fully realized later," and that it "fully deserves its spot on this list."

The verdict

Destination: Beautiful is a debut, and it sounds like one. It's a little long, a little soft in places, and the Jimmy Eat World comparisons aren't unfair. But "Embers and Envelopes" is still a great opening song, "All Deliberate Speed" and "Summertime" still lift a room, and the whole album has a kindness that most emo records of 2003 didn't. It's the sound of a young band with real hope in it, and the first step toward the great records Mae made next.

7/10

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