Saturday's Radar

The concept, meaning, and naming of the album (Western Songs) was a response to the relationship between America and the rest of the world stage as well as where America is at socio-politically going forward in to new territory historically. The naming was also chosen for simple wordplay; hinting that the possible music within may be of a Country/Western genre, which by the genres' own standards, it's not, but the album does have a small degree of instrumentation, namely lap steel, on certain tracks that pay homage to the genre's ethos and timbre.

The albums lyricist James Hill says, "Western Songs is about where we are as a country and people, globally, and where we're going, and what have we learned from the past and how will that affect the future. Also, the album artwork plays with the ideas of what is East and what is West? and are they just really one big thing and should they be viewed globally or should the world just continue to look at itself colloquially and nationalistically. What will either outlooks cause? Sometimes I feel I can learn as much from Britney Spears as I can from Chino and I don't exactly know what that means."

The artwork and graphics design for Western Songs, offered by Ricardo Acevedo and Guy Juke, has a dichotomy of images and meanings - the cover with Dubai in the background and a phantom troubadour figure reminiscent of sixties spaghetti westerns (more wordplay with the 'Western' name and trappings) as the interior art has missiles bearing down on the city while the phantom troubador from the covers' countenance is burned into the side of the building - an acknowledgement to the victims of the atomic bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. James Hill says, "In the end, we wanted something (the physical album) that someone could turn around, interact and play with much like a toy or an old school vinyl LP. Like a Clash or Zeppelin album. Something that a fan could immerse themselves in and not completely get on the first pass, but also like a Rubik's Cube - maybe something they could think about for a while."

Devoid of the typical lost love and date songs the are the flotsam and getsum of the alt rock and pop genre, the album's intentions are echoed in track names and songs such as: "Night Skies", which speaks of two childhood friends in a war-torn part of the globe that want to escape the horrors of daily bloodshed by slipping away into the cover of the night. "I Come Around" tells a linear story about the disparity of a latchkey kid's perspective (in the most abundant country in the world) as he comes to terms with his own feelings of self-worth, purpose, and place where guidance and solutions are scarce. "End of The World" tells of a dystopian landscape where hope has been lost. "The Destroyer" has a central character, a Vietnam Vet, coming home only to face the war within himself, realizing that he will only destory this new world and others around him. The chorus states, "He destroyed everything/it was so easy for him/and he crushed all the pain/and then he whispered, "I'm the destoryer".

Western Songs is about a country and world growing, coming of age, again, and then moving forward in to history while asking the question, "Have we been here before?"