Recently Reviewed:

The Neighbourhood
I Love You.

Iron Man 3: Heroes Fall
Various Artists

Paramore
Paramore

If The Afters new album is a big achievement in growth, then there’s a lot to be said for a band like Sanctus Real. Because in terms of growth and a variety of sound Sanctus Real achieved that with their last album “The Face of Love.” Now comes the follow up to that album “We Need Each Other”, and while it’s not as good as what can best described as a defining release by Sanctus Real with “The Face of Love”, it’s still very good and it shows why everyone should know this band not just music fans inside of the Christian genre or fans into the more obscure bands of the Alternative genre. There’s a lot to be said for a Christian band that had some mainstream success and instead of continuing on to the path to the mainstream, they follow it up with an album that’s even heavier with a Christian message than their past album. I know it seems like a dumb thing to say, but Sanctus Real didn’t sell out like they very well could have. If anything they went back to their routes. It’s a really admirable and noble thing to do. Lyrically, SR stayed it’s course, but musically Sanctus Real did go in a bit of a different direction. With the last album things were varied and if they could be described as anything it would be pop-alternative. With this go ‘round Sanctus Real is straight-up rock. There are slow songs and soft songs and there is a song or two with the edge of “I’m Not Alright”, but most of this album can best be described straight-forward alternative-rock. It’s not the same through the album, but there’s definitely a distinct flavor to it. So they stayed pat lyrically and they grew moderately musically, that’s the way this album is summed up. Simply put “The Face of Love” would be a hard album to follow for anyone, and by not moving backwards Sanctus Real succeeds with “We Need Each Other.” I will say this about Sanctus Real, there were bands from the early part of this decade and the latter part of the 90’s that made straight-forward alternative music, and we loved all of those bands. Sanctus Real does those bands proud. There’s the cliché one step backwards two steps forward; “We Need Each Other” isn’t that. It’s basically a strong release that doesn’t show advancement or regression- it’s just another good album from a good band.