Music Review

Each month, UMC.org publishes six critical reviews of recently released compact discs. A critical review is one in which the writer describes and evaluates the piece of music and supports this evaluation with clear evidence. Every two weeks, three new reviews are published. Though UMC.org reviews music of all genres, titles are chosen based on their message. Meaning, we will only review music that challenges its listeners to ponder significant issues facing us as Christians.

Jars of Clay: Good Monsters
Label: Essential Records
Sound/Style: Experimental Christian rock with heady, introspective lyrics

A descriptive phrase like “Christian rock” has certain shortcomings that come into sharp focus when the label is applied to the work of a group like Jars of Clay. It isn’t a completely incorrect term, but neither is it comprehensive enough to address the contents of the band’s recorded output. Perhaps because the group became ensnared in a somewhat absurd controversy between secular and Christian fans almost from the beginning, Jars of Clay has grown gifted at musical shape-shifting, presumably to avoid being tagged as either a Christian or a mainstream act. They can legitimately lay claim to both descriptions. The band’s ability to morph is perhaps the centerpiece of their new album, Good Monsters, which contains a diverse blend of musical influences that finds them creating modern rock, rustic-tinged sounds and atmospheric offerings with equal skill. The downside of their stylistic flexibility is the lack of a distinct and recognizable thumbprint on their work, while the upside is the subtlety, artistic reach and experimental freedom that can be heard across the record’s dozen tracks. [More]

Kate Campbell with Spooner Oldham:
For the Living of These Days
Label: Large River Music
Sound/Style: Southern soul and folk with a gospel emphasis

Singer/songwriter Kate Campbell exudes the spirit of the American South in a way that makes her a musical extension of southern authors and folk artists such as Flannery O’Connor and the Reverend Howard Finster. While Campbell’s work isn’t usually as evangelical as the late Reverend Finster’s, she does draw substantial inspiration from the songs that were a linchpin of her Mississippi Baptist upbringing. On her 2001 recording, Wandering Strange, Campbell fully embraced the subject of her Christian faith with original songs and reinterpretations of traditional Christian hymns. Her new album, For the Living of These Days, is her second project to focus entirely on the spiritual. Unlike Wandering Strange, however, the disc pulls from a wider variety of musical sources and perspectives. This makes for an interesting, if not always doctrinally exact, exploration of faith and the differing responses it can elicit from believers and onlookers. [More]

Samuel David: Dangerous
Label: Independent Christian artist
Sound/Style: Soul-flavored and God-honoring rock/R&B, heavy on southern influences

A growing number of independent artists are putting out CDs with no support whatsoever from record labels, and along with them comes the expectation that these upstart singers and musicians are less advanced or experienced than their major (or even minor) label counterparts. While this is oftentimes the case, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the debut album by Nashville-based musician Samuel David. His self-produced disc, Dangerous, was a long time coming. He wasn’t exactly biding his time idly in the many years that elapsed between moving to the music Mecca of Nashville and putting the finishing touches on his collection of original songs, most of which reveal David’s longstanding relationship with both Jesus Christ and the musical vocabulary of the American south. It’s entirely possible, in fact, that others working under the independent banner might, in their more uncharitable moments, think it unfair that they are competing alongside a guitarist and songwriter with a professional resume as lengthy as David’s (available at samueldavidmusic.com). Preferably, though, his younger indie colleagues will elect to tip their caps to the determination and savvy of the silver-haired musician after hearing the meaty material he has to offer. [More]