Southern Weather — The Almost

Southern Weather is the first album by the Almost, the band Aaron Gillespie started while he was still drumming and singing in Underoath. Tooth & Nail put it out with Virgin Records on April 3, 2007. It's eleven songs in about thirty-eight minutes, and it gets a 7/10.

How it started

The songs began in October 2005. Gillespie was in New York City and felt the urge to write some straight-ahead rock songs. His manager put him in a studio, and that night he posted two demos, I Mostly Copy Other People and Never Say "I Told You So", on his Myspace page. Underoath were making Define the Great Line at the time. Gillespie had a few weeks between tracking his drums and recording his vocals, and he filled them by writing songs that didn't sound like his day job.

Aaron Sprinkle produced the album at Compound Recording in Seattle in 2006. Someone at Tooth & Nail suggested him. Gillespie didn't know Sprinkle, but he loved his work with Pedro the Lion. Sprinkle had also produced Emery's The Question and Anberlin's Cities, so this was familiar ground for him. Gillespie's credited with writing every song, and he played nearly every instrument himself. Sprinkle added guitar and keyboards, Kevin Suggs played pedal steel, and Kenny Vasoli of the Starting Line played bass on a couple of songs.

What you're hearing

This isn't Underoath with the screaming taken out. It's bright, punchy alternative rock and emo, built on big choruses and Gillespie's clean singing. The drums are loud, as you'd hope from a drummer's record. According to Modern Drummer, the kit on Dirty and Left Out went through a single microphone, with a tambourine taped to the bass drum.

The opener, Say This Sooner, is the hit. It hits hard and fast, and it reached No. 7 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. Gillespie said of it, "I've had struggles along the way. But I am very much informed by Southern values and I think the songs speak to that." The title song comes in fifth and keeps the same push.

The two songs that matter most are slower. Dirty and Left Out leans toward country. Gillespie and Sprinkle wrote it after listening to Red House Painters' Ocean Beach, and Jeremy Enigk of Sunny Day Real Estate sings on it. Amazing Because It Is uses Amazing Grace as its chorus. A youth group choir from Calvary Fellowship in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, sings it with him, over horns and a cello part arranged by Matt Slocum. Cross Rhythms wrote that these two songs are where Gillespie states his Christian faith outright.

What the critics said

Jesus Freak Hideout's review came from Trey Pearson, the singer of Everyday Sunday. He called Say This Sooner super catchy and extremely refreshing. He picked it, Amazing Because It Is and Dirty and Left Out as the standouts. He said there wasn't a bad song in the bunch, though there were spots you could take or leave. He admitted it wasn't quite what he expected. He'd hoped for something closer to Underoath's older melodic songs, just without the screaming. Even so, he called it a refreshing, honest and great album and gave it 4 out of 5.

At Cross Rhythms, Trevor Fitzgerald gave it 9 out of 10. He heard a record less aggressive than Underoath, in an alternative rock vein. His standouts were the driving, percussive Say This Sooner and the acoustic Amazing Because It Is. He said Gillespie made the old hymn powerfully anthemic, especially at the end, when the choir and crunching guitars come in. He found enough hooks and ideas to keep it interesting on repeat listens and called it a hugely impressive debut.

Tom Spinelli at Melodic gave it 3.5 out of 5. He noted that one-person records often sound laid back. This one, he wrote, was the opposite, with hard-hitting drums and guitars that carry the energy and urgency of a live band. He called it a fine alternative emo rock album. AllMusic and Spin also gave it 3.5 out of 5. AbsolutePunk's Drew Beringer gave it 72 percent. He heard Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba in Amazing Because It Is, and Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now in Never Say "I Told You So" and Call Back When I'm Honest.

Not everyone was won over. LAS Magazine gave it 4 out of 10, and Chart Attack's review was unfavorable too.

How it did

Southern Weather debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200, selling about 29,000 copies in its first week. It had sold 72,000 in the US by June 2007. In June 2007 it hit No. 1 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart, which Cross Rhythms called a surprise. The Say This Sooner video, directed by Shane Drake, shows Gillespie traveling through time, and it got heavy play on MTV. The band spent 2007 on the road with Paramore, at Cornerstone and on the Warped Tour. Gillespie later reworked Dirty and Left Out and Amazing Because It Is for the Christmas EP No Gift to Bring in 2008. The second album, Monster Monster, followed in 2009.

Where the score lands

Here's why it's a seven. The best songs are excellent, and the whole thing goes by fast. Say This Sooner is one of the best rock singles any Christian label released that decade. Dirty and Left Out and Amazing Because It Is show Gillespie could write something gentler and more personal than anything Underoath made. So why not an eight? The middle of the album leans hard on borrowed sounds, and the comparisons to Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional are fair. A few songs, like Stop It and Everyone Here Smells Like a Rat, are fun but forgettable. And why not a six? The craft is real. One man playing almost everything made a record that sounds like a band, and his faith comes through in plain words without turning the songs into sermons.

Watch

Say This Sooner leads with its official music video, the time-travel clip that ran on MTV. After it comes the official video for Southern Weather, then the album version of Dirty and Left Out.

Where this album sits on Loud Faith

Southern Weather is the gentle side door into the Underoath story. If They're Only Chasing Safety is where you heard Gillespie's clean singing first, this is where that voice got a whole album to itself. It belongs on our emo shelf, next to the melodic records that Tooth & Nail and Sprinkle were turning out in Seattle at the time.