Ups & Downs: Early Recordings and B-Sides

Full of material culled from EPs, demos, and B-sides, UPS & DOWNS chronicles the early days of pop-punks Saves the Day. Singer/songwriter Chris Conley plants his flag firmly in emo territory with his sincere voice and lyrics about relationships, loss, and growing pains. Conley's literate wordplay, and song titles like "Sell My Old Clothes, I'm Off to Heaven," show an advanced skill with detail and witty turns of phrase, impressive for such a young songsmith (he was only in his late teens when he wrote some of these tunes).
Although many tracks are spare and intimate (numerous cuts are from the band's 1999 acoustic EP, recorded in the singer's mother's basement), Saves the Day is more than poetry and teacups. The unit rocks full-tilt and in-your-face, as on the ragged "East Coast" (the very first song the group recorded) and the breakneck thrash of "An Afternoon Laughing." These songs (and most the disc's second half) are from Saves the Day's first demo, and it displays the ensemble's raw, fiery intensity. Covers of songs by the Clash and the Descendents are telling, highlighting the link between Conley's emo melodicism and the band's debt to early punk.