The emo-adjacent band known as Saves the Day has other songs not called “At Your Funeral,” and no, they don’t only have one album; Saves the Day has NINE full-length LPs. The toxic wasteland known as New Jersey, The Garden State that has more pesticides than one man can count, surprisingly was the epicenter of a scene in the late ‘90s/early aughts with bands like Lifetime, Thursday, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Led Zeppelin leading the charge. Sincerity sells, and Saves the Day came out of the gates swinging hard with their consistently revered debut album “Can’t Slow Down.” Today we go through all their studio albums and rank them perfectly top to bottom.
9. 9 (2018)
This may sound harsh, but we only hurt the ones that we love, and we ADORE Saves the Day: We’ll never get the time back that we lost listening to the band’s ninth album called, err, “9,” and not only does said LP have ZERO replay value, but The Beatles’ oft-maligned “Revolution 9” is like “Bohemian Rhapsody” compared to “9” as a whole. In addition, the album even has a lazy title. Still, “29” is ambitious, and long STD, yes, STD, songs are great, and we reference one more later that is near the top of their heap. Basically, we like to pretend that STD only has 8 albums. This album’s lasting power is showcased by the fact that despite there being nine songs on “9,” only one single exists, the ok at best “Rendezvous,” which is buried as the eighth track.
Play it again: “29”
Skip it: Most of it
8. Under the Boards (2007)
Now we’re at the point of this piece wherein we mention Saves the Day’s first good album to be discussed here: “Under the Boards,” STD’s sixth album, and second installment in the “Sound The Alarm”/”Under The Boards”/”Daybreak” trilogy is good, but not great, so in a movie analogy y’all will get or won’t, it is less “The Empire Strikes Back” and more “Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.” If you had a chance to go to the band’s co-headlining tour with eventual Two Tongues collaborators Say Anything in 2007, you caught wind of something emotionally epic in all of the good ways, and we’re jealous of you unless you were getting messed up on your Blackberries the whole time because you are woefully turning over in your tomb on a lonely getaway. Thankfully, the trilogy would end with a BANG with the next one, “Daybreak”.
Play it again: “Can’t Stay the Same”
Skip it: about ⅓ of it
7. Self-Titled (2013)
Saves the Day’s eighth full-length studio album is self-titled for a reason, as it was a concise back-to-basics record after the polarizing trilogy. Thankfully it’s still so much better than your crappy and derivative shoegaze band; call it quits, ladies and gents. Ain’t no kind of love like the kind we have for Saves the Day, and the band was extra generous by supplying ring pops, grapefruits, stars, and vegemite to the “emo” block party of 2013, a year that will forever live in infamy. Critics large and small from inferior publications ate this up, and fans did as well, as “Saves the Day” reintroduced the band as sort of elder melodic hardcore, or “post-hardcore,” if you’re feeling nasty.
Play it again: “Xenophobic Blind Left Hook”
Skip it: Just under ⅓ of it
6. Can’t Slow Down (1998)
Handsome boy, we know, this debut effort from Saves the Day should be the silver or gold medalist winner here, but that just shows how much good music Saves the Day has produced. Despite the fact that “Can’t Slow Down” is a solid AF debut for ANY band, it didn’t even qualify for the Olympics at the turn of last century; sorry, Jodie, we don’t care how tall you are. We love this one, but the best part of it is its eventual follow-up, “Through Being Cool,” and it’s quite interesting to hear the band in seemingly adolescent on the cusp of puberty form here. Still, “Three Miles Down,” and several others here are god tier, and we implore you to revisit “Can’t Slow Down” with fresh 2023 ears, and not as fresh 1998 lower backs.
Play it again: “Three Miles Down”
Skip it: “Hot Time in Delaware”
5. Sound the Alarm (2006)
The first installment in Saves the Day’s eventual trilogy, is an angry punk AF masterpiece and a great post-major label effort. Easily their heaviest record, one can hear the pain and grit on any speaker unless it is from your great aunt Marla’s Edsel. Anyway, re-signing with Vagrant Records, the band’s home for their third and blockbuster LP “Stay What You Are,” seemed to be, for lack of a better word, a more than sound move, and the record debuted at number FOUR on the US Billboard Independent Albums chart, and had a song on the Madden ‘07 soundtrack, showing the world at large that people still gave a damn about this rough and tumble band, and you are delusional, despite said word being the worst song on “Sound the Alarm.”
Play it again: “Eulogy”
Skip it: “Delusional”
4. Daybreak (2011)
“The Godfather Part III” is the worst entry in the epic AF Godfather trilogy, but “Daybreak,” record #3 in STD’s trilogy, defied the odds set by many multi-volume movies and ended with a firework display of awesome. Easily the most slept on Saves the Day LP, the record started with a top ten STD song known as the title track, and it is kind of a combination of Radiohead’s epic “Paranoid Android, NOFX’s perfect “The Decline,” The Beatles’ anthemic “Hey Jude,” and Anal Cunt’s acoustic campfire sing along “Radio Hit.” “Daybreak” is lucky #7 for Saves the Day, and their co-headlining run on this record with Bayside, and I Am the Avalanche in the support slots was one for the books. Also, this is their lone record with Razor & Tie, home to Kidz Bop and Kidz Full Stop. Living without love must suck, nighttime chameleons.
Play it again: “Daybreak”
Skip it: “U”
3. In Reverie (2003)
In (reverie and) a perfect world, this LP, Saves the Day’s fourth effort, “In Reverie,” would’ve been the proper indie label follow-up to “Through Being Cool,” and the band’s third album “Stay What You Are” would have been their major label debut, but that was not how the cookies crumbled for STD. What went wrong? A lot! For one, it was a major departure like Panic without an exclamation point at the Disco’s also-Beatles-esque “Pretty. Odd.” which likely alienated a lot of emo hearts like yours, and with even more additional mishaps like the label shift from DreamWorks to Interscope Records, the then-scrappy five-piece likely got lost in the conglomerate shuffle. We heard that Tom DeLonge advised the band to sign with a major after “Through Being Cool,” and we stan that thought very much! Still, “Anywhere with You” is a hell of a single and opener.
Play it again: “Anywhere With You”
Skip it: “Monkey”
2. Stay What You Are (2001)
Because of this breakout record, and the fanfare from its two predecessors, blink-182 and Green Day took Saves the Day out on the Pop Disaster Tour for half of its dates, and Jimmy Eat World for the other 50%. “Stay What You Are” is now amongst the higher-selling LPs in the genre, and the band will likely be playing approximately ⅓-⅖ of its songs at every STD show in perpetuity. Also, the band is happily playing this one front to back at 2024’s When We Were Young music festival, appearing with the aforementioned Jimmy Eat World as they play their perfect “Bleed American” LP in its entirety, and Brokencyde whilst they rock and roll through their debut effort “I’m Not a Fan, But the Kids Like It!”
Play it again: Stay WHERE you are and listen to it all
Skip it: Being what you are
1. Through Being Cool (1999)
Saves the Day’s polar opposite of a sophomore slump is without hesitation or hyperbole, one of the best records of the ‘90s. When one thinks of that tranistiional decade it’s usually grunge and even swing music that comes to mind, but “Through Being Cool” is too good to overlook, and the band blazes through twelve tracks at thirty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds in a manner that will be pretty much unrivaled forever. Thanks to Steve Evetts, and mega hugs are in order for the then-lineup of Chris “topher” Conley on vocals and not guitar, Bryan “Hello” Newman on drums, Eben “Son of Friend” D’Amico on bass, Ted “dy” Alexander on rhythm guitar, and David “I Killed Goliath With My Sling And Positive Mental Attitude,” of which Conley is the only current member. Kisses to Arun Bali, Rodrigo Palma, and Claudio Rivera as well.
Play it again: “Through Being Cool”
Skip it: “9”