(Photo Credits: Ember)

Live Show Rating: 5 Stars.

Spoken’s fourth album is not yet perfection, pardon the pun — there is some experimentation with vocals on a few of A Moment…‘s tracks, they don’t yet fit one style, and they’re not yet cohesive though the whole CD, etc.— but it’s a huge improvement and maturing from their previous releases, and still a quite good album in itself.

“Across These Waters”, apparently a love song, begins the CD. Its vocals are high yet gritty.

“Promise” has a quite high chorus, which gives you a glimpse of Matt Baird’s incredible range [a range that you can hear in full on their next album].

“A Breath In The Fog” is a solid song with great vocals, lyrics, and guitars. It’s excellently done.

“Falling Further”, like the previous track, is solid and has great vocals, lyrics, and guitars.

“Sleep Well Tonight” is another love song, and it has more great drums and guitars. Vocally, it begins medium-range; the chorus is doubly sung (both medium and high); and in the second verse the vocals are sung high.

“A World Away” is again a love song. This track’s very layered bass and guitars are fairly intriguing; and then, near the end, the music picks up excellently into their full sound in one great, smooth motion.

“Learning To Forget” goes back to the disc’s regular style of music. Lyrically it’s about learning to forgive people who’ve lied.

“In Dreams (I Sometimes See You)” is another energetic song with, again, great guitars.

“Seasons Change” is slower-paced during the verses but has a totally rocking chorus. Its vocals (which get up there in height) are great, and this is another solid track.

“Remembered” has a different guitar- and vocal-melody combination. And while other tracks had occasional vocal ‘emphasis’, “Remembered” is the only track on this disc to feature any true screaming (a few verses near the end).

Finally, the last track “How Long” begins softer and slower, but musically picks up during the chorus; and it has a long, layered fadeout at the end to close out the disc.

Our rating for A Moment Of Imperfect Clarity: 4 & 3/4 Stars.

BEST FIFTH RELEASE 2005 Award Winner!

Runners-Up: Switchfoot (Nothing Is Sound), Poor Old Lu (The Waiting Room),
Disciple (Back Again).
Honorable Mention: dcTalk (Supernatural).

Spoken’s Last Chance To Breathe, like many bands’ year-2005 releases, literally perfects their sound— now Rock/Hardcore, they’ve found their style, and it’s a good one. Last Chance… is definitely their best release so far; the disc’s music is very coherent, and all-around excellent.

“September” kicks off the disc with great rock and semi-autobiographical lyrics. This track also gives you hints of the vocal heights to come.

The next track, “Wind In My Sails”, keeps up the pace with another rocker that easily showcases frontman Matt Baird’s incredible range. In fact, as he moves into his signature high-flying screams near the end of the song, at certain points he’s close to going as high as we’ve ever heard him go. Not only that, the pure energy of this song hooks you. Great stuff.

They next move into a beautiful, medium-paced ballad with “Love In Return”, one of our all-time favorite Spoken tracks and one of the best songs on this disc.

“Everything Is Burning” moves back to energy-filled rock.

“1992″ starts off with excellent heavy guitars and an interesting musical contrast— fast drumming, but slow singing. And then, in the chorus, Matt uses his voice in combination with the guitars to amazing, appealing effect. At the end of the song, a double sing-in-the-foreground / scream-in-the-background vocal is used until the track fades away.

Title track “Last Chance To Breathe” is a medium-paced rock song that is almost completely sung, except for the very last sentence. Afterwards, a very short instrumental piece (using a guitar line almost identical to the one in “Learning To Forget” from their previous album) acts as an interest/suspense-building intro to “Bitter Taste”.

“Bitter Taste” (featuring Cory Putman of Norma Jean) is definitely the heaviest track of the album, and they rip into it without hesitation. Matt constantly alternates incredible, shockingly-high-screamed lyrics with sung ones, guest Cory Putman’s occasional low-screamed lyrics acting as a counterpoint. A minute into the song the whole thing intriguingly slows down for a sentence (drawing the lyrics out in a really cool way), and then picks back up. What’s also amazing about this song is its appeal— despite the screaming, it’s actually musical… and yes, even catchy!

Providing a breather after the intensity of the previous song, “From The Inside” is another beautiful ballad that sees a change in octaves a ways through.

“Home” is another good medium-paced rock song. Lyrically, it seems to be (at least partially) a tribute to someone who passed away.

“4th Street” picks up the pace some more, and contains longing lyrics.

Spoken next includes their excellent cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”.

And finally “You’re Still Waiting” closes off the album with one more fast rocker, giving you the last taste of Matt’s unique high vocals (and the few parting screamed lyrics) of this CD.

In all, Spoken’s fifth release is an excellent album, and definitely worthy of Best Fifth Release.

Our rating for Last Chance To Breathe: 5 & 1/2 Stars.

A Best Sixth Release Honorable Mention in the 2007 Awards

Spoken’s self-titled sixth release has, quite noticeably, much heavier vocals overall (and even a bit heavier music) than their previous release. And the amazingly hard-hitting opening track “History Erased”— kicking in with pounding, high-screamed lyrics and music to match— immediately evidences this fact.

Next, the full-on rocking love song “Close Your Eyes” begins with screamed lyrics, dips into frontman Matt Baird’s signature high singing, then continues on with a great mix of both.

“Not Soon Forgotten”, another heavy rocker, has almost entirely rough or screamed vocals (which are sometimes very high). The end of this track fades into the next without a pause.

“Trading In This Troubled Heart” is the first track on this disc to exhibit a vocal style similar to their previous album’s. There’s an interesting, memorable quality to the melodies in the chorus and final bridge; and the lyrics contain a theme of hope through darkness.

“You’re The One” is another love song. In contrast to the first one, however, this track is a ballad; and it’s very different from anything else they’ve done so far. Musically, a muted background piano is the lead for the majority of the song, picking up into a guitar lead for the track’s finale.

“Brought To Life”, as you might expect, bounces the energy level right back up. Its chorus is mostly sung while the verses are mostly screamed, and the vocals fly spectacularly high at times (even for Matt). Musically it’s another great rocker, rhythmic and quite heavy.

“Long Live The Dream” is another great track. It continues the musical heaviness, with mixed vocals (which, of course, occasionally go quite high ). Lyrically, this track encourages you to never, ever give up.

For the first two minutes or so, “Start The Revolution” is mostly an instrumental, with a rather suspenseful feel; however, that morphs into a more courageous, resolute feel as the song builds. At the points where there are real vocals, they sing only one lyric line, and mix it in and around the great rock instrumental work. It’s just plain cool.

“The Meaning Of…” is lyrically a love song to family, and it’s a quite good rocker, musically and vocally blending this album’s style with their previous’.

“When Hope Is All You Have” is again somewhat similar to their previous album’s style (though with a bit more vocal height), and it encourages you to hold on to hope. The end of this song fades into the next.

Finally, end track “The Answer” contains some interesting guitar/drum rhythms and this disc’s typical vocal mix; becoming fairly powerful towards the end, it closes out the album very well.

Our rating for Spoken: 5 & 1/4 Stars.