"Savior's Robes" by Yellowcard, Monday, March 28, 2022 [partial repost]

In 2016, Yellowcard called it quits, echoing many other bands in a changing music industry. Best known for their fourth album, Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard headlined Warped Tour and were at the top of the genre thanks to MTV's Total Request Live and placements in video games. But the band that had once been played on pop and rock radio, soon saw waning promotion, particularly in their later years. With albums underperforming and internal conflict in the band, they released their self-titled final album in 2016. They have only reunited in a controversial lawsuit against rapper Juice WRLD, which the band later dropped after the rapper died in 2020.

YOU TOOK MY EDGE, SHARPENED IT IN CASE. My experience with Yellowcard was much like most of their fair-weather fans. Ocean Avenue was novel and fun. It was a time when bands could experiment with the format of a rock band to include something like, say, an electric violin on every track substituting for guitar leads. Their second album, Lights and Sounds, was slightly stronger but less impressive. Their third album, Paper Walls,  felt like a rehashing of everything they've ever done before and that was the end of my casual fandom. Turns out, that album was born out of inner conflict, and it caused the band to go on hiatus. But after that hiatus, Yellowcard returned to the music scene with more mature songwriting and a better use of the electric violin. For the most part, the Jacksonville-Florida natives stuck to their "Boys of Summer" formula: mostly major keys, bright guitar tones, energetic bass, and drums pumping through the mix. But occasionally, they broke with the formula, most notably on 2014's title track "Lift a Sail" and today's song, ""Savior's Robes."

I WONDER IF YOU CAN RECALL MY NAME. The self-titled Yellowcard album is uncharacteristically un-summer-y in its stormy grey album cover. Some of the songs on the album match the cover art's tone, but mostly it's business as usual Yellowcard, and listeners wouldn't feel that their final album is so far out of their typical musical reach. But then there's track 9. Opening with a heavy distorted guitar and drums and an uncharacteristically angry-sounding lead singer Ryan Key, "Savior's Robes," sounds like it's a dis-track to some bad blood in the band's history. Yellowcard had a series of member shake-ups, some of which were bitter. The reference to "a devil in a savior's robes" sounds eerily religious. Key had been a member of the Tooth & Nail band Craig's Brother, and as a Florida band in punk/pop-punk had been around a lot of the early 2000s Tooth & Nail bands, according to Key's interview on Lead Singer Syndrome. This song sounds more like it's channeling that sound than the upbeat teens on Ocean Avenue. One line I found interesting: "You're a devil in a savior's robe / Made it easier to let you go / I never should have let you get so close."  It's easy to let a devil go once you realize they are one, but the savior's robe allows that person to get close. Is this a metaphor for a friend who betrays or literally about an experience with someone who uses piety as a way to draw others in? Is it the music industry? Is it the "cool Christian" youth groups? Is it the festivals that the band played alongside Christian bands? It's a very icky feeling when you're swindled by the oily Bible salesman. It's quite a common story, and I have quite a few from working for a church school. Still, it's even icky when they try to swindle people who don't believe it. It's actually quite embarrassing, or at least it was. No wonder why people are so programmed against religion.

Fan theories about the Yellowcard break-up:

Read “Savior's Robes” by Yellowcard on Genius.