Switchfoot mixes a touch of clubby beats and production into its rock, which tends toward the big and anthemic. It’s poppy, muscular and soaring music, heavy on tension and release and carefully placed quiet-loud dynamic change-ups.
The band’s name comes from a surfing term for being able to change orientation and allow flux to propel you. Uplift, perseverance, endurance, grace, truth and forgiveness are ideas that seem to crop up again and again in the band’s work.
Switchfoot is a large-theme band, not likely to write about trivial pleasure-seeking. You can hear the debt to bands like U2 and late Aerosmith in Switchfoot’s arena-epic hooks.
The faith-based underpinnings of Switchfoot’s material has caused some to debate in which genre bin it would be filed at the theoretical record store: Is this Christian rock? Perhaps. But spirituality and religion have fueled loads of pop songwriting. This is pop that aims for something beyond bubblegum disposability, an ambition that can signal a welcome earnestness or potential overreach, depending on your sensibility.
Switchfoot performs with Relient K at the Dome at Oakdale Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford, Friday, Oct. 14, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.
