“Take Cover” by Acceptance, Wednesday, August 21, 2024 + Phantoms track by track (repost)

"Take Cover" is the opening track to Acceptance's debut and almost final album, Phantoms. It starts with a piano loop and adds momentum with the drums. Jason Vena's smooth vocals hit a high register which puts the band on good emo footing for the time, as a singer who could whine a few lines was essential for a band that makes it. Listening to Phantoms again today--as I've talked about this album at least three times before--I thought about one of the fatal flaws of the record: the track order. Even though, I think that this album is a perfect artifact of my last two years in high school, I can kind of see why this band wasn't huge, and it has to do with the track listing of this album.

SHE MAKES THE CITY SEEM LIKE HOME. Today, I'm going to do a track-by-track analysis of this album, and I'll probably add to this analysis as I choose more songs to be song of the day. I may not have a lot to say about the tracks individually as I've already talked about my experience with the album and the band's history, but today it occurred to me that in 2005, you don't start a new rock band's album off with a slow song. Save that for an established rock band. Sure, this was the time of OneRepublic and The Fray, but the record company did nothing to earn rock credibility before trying to break Acceptance into the rock market. And Phantoms, at its core, was a rock record. But the album doesn't even start to rock until track 3, "In Too Far," and the album again puts on the brakes with track 5 "Different." I love "Take Cover" and think it's a unique way to start an album, but when the band was aiming for an audience, confusing the fans with a different sound didn't work in their favor. I guess that's how generic always wins out in the end. Below is a link to listen to the album on Spotify and a brief discussion of each track and links to the song if I've blogged about that track.

Listen to Phantoms on Spotify.

Track 1 "Take Cover." The song of the day. Read the lyrics on Genius. Also, check out the cover by A Day to Remember below. In recent years, this song and “So Contagious” have received a boost in streams when Demi Lovato included it on their Emo Nite Takeover Playlist on Spotify.

Track 2 "So Contagious." Is an even slower second track. The song wends its way from a slow pop ballad to a slightly more energetic chorus, which prepares us for track 3, a rock song.  Aaron Sprinkle also recorded this song for his solo record Lackluster.

Track 3 “In Too Far” picks the record up to its rock status. Listeners can start to hear what Jason Vena’s voice can do with rock. The vocals are much cleaner than most groups, and Vena is said to be a perfectionist when it comes to vocal takes, according to the band’s Labeled episode.

Track 4. “The Letter” takes the rock down a notch and introduces the northwestern-sounding melancholy guitar tones that the band has used throughout their career and guitarist Christian McAlhaney would also bring to Anberlin.

Track 5 “Different.” There’s a lot to say about their failed single, but I found myself skipping the track more times than not after listening to the album several times. It’s well-written and sentimental, but it lacks something to make me keep coming back to it. This is probably another reason why the band didn’t make it.

Track 6 “Ad Astra Per Aspera” is the instrumental track that sets up the rock portion of the album. The moody track takes its name from Latin, meaning “To the stars through difficulty.”

Track 7 “This Conversation Is Over” should have been the rock radio single that went before “Different.” In another reality, this song was played on college radio stations, and that reality was The Sims 2: University. 

Track 8 "Over You" is a bit of a letdown coming off "Conversation." The song has grown on me over the years, though.

Track 9 "Breathless" isn't one of the stand-out tracks, but a roommate in college said it was the only good track on the record, so there's that. I thought the chorus and the bridge sounded like an '80s song.

Track 10 "In the Cold" is one of my favorite tracks on the album. The guitars build an atmosphere of coldness and Vena's voice adds just enough warmth to make it cosy. I'm weird, I don't see music in terms of color but in terms of warmth.

Track 11 "Permanent" was a Radio U single when the band released an EP, Black Lines for Battlefields,  on the Militia Group, which was actually a marketing tactic to build indie cred behind the band. The song was featured in the game ATV Offroad Fury 3, and there's a terrible music video for the song floating around on YouTube.

Track 12 "Glory/Us" closes the album on a ballad. It starts out a little sad, but by the final chorus, the listener feels empowered with the line "Glory is waiting." Sadly that would be the end of the band minus the promotional AOL Sessions EP until the band started teasing new music in the mid '10s.

Studio version:

Sessions at AOL acoustic version:

Sessions at AOL version