Every so often I get emails asking if I want an album to review.  I often say no.  Partially because it’s just not what I want my blog to be all about.  Partially cause one of the things that drives me nuts about ‘Christian music’ (aside from the delineation in the first place, but that’s another post) is that it is just often sub-par.  (We do keep up better in music than in movies, but again, a whole different post.)

But when I got an opportunity to review the new Gungor album, Ghosts Upon The Earth (released today, 9/20), and have some giveaways (hint, hint…foreshadowing) I jumped on it.  Some of you may remember me posting about the first time I heard Gungor.  They play “liturgical post-rock” and blew me away as great musicians with great music and an incredible presentation.  So….after a such a great album before, I must admit I was a bit concerned that I might be disappointed, that they may not be able to live up to it.

I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case.

The day I got the CD, I jumped in my car to go some where and popped the disc in as soon as I could.  Right off the bat the album opened with beautiful, haunting guitar and piano notes, the female vocal adding the perfect added layer, followed by a choir building in.  I knew with half a minute that I was gonna dig it.  I love Gungor’s use of orchestration and interesting, progressive instrumentation.  Also, I’m not sure if they intentionally through compose their albums, but it is amazing how it all fits together and should really be listened to straight through as an entire movement.

One of the things I enjoy about Gungor is the use of great lyrics that communicate an abstractness that pushes envelopes of the typical, that are poetic, and that seem to contain an inherent depth.  The second song, Brother Moon, opening with some cool sounding woodwinds, “Brother Moon, shine down you light on us tonight / show us the love of God / Sister Sun, you bring out the day / you shine in the light of God on your face today…” and building to the chorus – “In you we live, in you we move, in you we have our being…”

Anyway, I’ll spare you going song by song, but there were a couple highlights for me as I listened through the album several times over the past week.  Church Bells is this haunting lullabyesque sounding proverb that forces me to stop and listen everytime, sometimes skipping back to the front of the track to take it in again.  “Let church bells ring / let children sing / even if they don’t know why let them sing / Why drown their joy / stifle their voice / just because you’ve lost yours.”  Love songs that make me think, and I must admit, I feel like each time I listen to this song I’m confronted with my own jadedness.
It then transitions perfectly into a tension filled opening of Wake Up Sleeper, a more prophetic proclamation of the Kingdom type of song – “Rejoice all you who are poor / the Kingdom is yours / the kingdom is yours / Rejoice you jaded and torn / both sinner & saint for the Kingdom is yours / Woe to you religious teachers rich and worshipping your book / woe to you who use His name to justify the souls you took / Wake up…”  video below

Finally, the end of the album builds to a very hope filled sound and heart, the highlight for me being You Are The Beauty.  The upbeat traditional folk sort of sound is awesome, with a killer banjo.  Kinda reminds me of an upbeat Irish bar song and is a celebration of creation and beauty.  Makes me wanna dance.

The Bottom Line

I love the versatility of Gungor and all the different types of songs that come in this one album.
They did a great job having that same sound I loved from the last album, but not being a copy of it at the same time.
The lyrics are inspiring, the artistry is impressive, and musicianship and instrumentation is crazy interesting and fun to listen to.
I wouldn’t call their music super accessible for most churches to use in a worship context, but that’s not really what I’m looking for these days.  I prefer listenability and musicianship.  (I realize those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but often times they are right now.)
Honestly, the first album I’ve heard in a while that I don’t have any sort of critiques or anything negative to say about.
Just go buy it…

OR…

I have 2 copies to give away!
I’m trying to get more in the habit of blogging, but it’s not that I’m so back on it that I just wanna drive a ton of traffic here.
So let’s try and do something useful.
It’s always nice to have some good music, and discover good stuff.

Leave a comment here or on the FB link to this post and let us know what you’re listening to that we need to hear.
Better yet, if it’s on YouTube or anything, leave us a link.
Any genre, any style, just give us all some stuff to check out and enjoy.
You have until 7am tomorrow morning.
I’ll pull some names from that pool of people tomorrow morning.
Then the rest of you can go buy it.

So…
What new music are you digging on right now that we need to check out?

So I’m a little late on this one, but oddly enough, it may work out better for the review that it took some time.
I didn’t really love the album so much at first, but it’s grown on me.
Just to give something for reference, I’ll give it 3 1/2 stars.  Think of 1 stars as, “Who even agreed to record this album?”, 2 stars as mid 90’s Maranatha(As The Deer anyone?), and 5 stars in the range of Gungor (Beautiful Things)  and Matt Maher (Alive Again).  Hopefully that helps you figure out where your taste fits into my rating, being that it really is all subjective.

We’ve been playing the song Our God (which contains the lyrics the album is named after) for several months at Twin Oaks now.  I heard it on the live Passion album that I got early this year.   LOVE that song.
So after such a great live recording on the Passion album from Tomlin, I was pretty disappointed with the studio version of the song.  The string parts that were added just didn’t really do it for me and the song doesn’t drive/rock nearly as much.  Too produced and too soft for my preference.

Then it went on to the next song, I Will Follow, and now I was hooked in.  Loved the message of the song and the catchy chorus.  Similarly I appreciated the next song I Lift My Hands, especially for the concept of worshipping through difficulty and pain.

Later in the album, I came across the song Lovely.  Remember how I said the album has grown on me a bit?  Was not a fan of this song at first.  Lovely just isn’t all that compelling of a word for me.  But, lately I’ve found myself humming the song under my breath without even realizing I had started it.  And that is what I think Tomlin is best at.  Writing songs that are accesible for worship and stick with people.

The album continues with some pretty good songs that sound a lot like what you’d expect from Tomlin.
It finishes with Awakening.  This is another tune that is on the Passion album, and has grown on me quite a bit over the year.  One of the highlights of the album, it really is a great anthem in live worship for inviting God to really do something in our hearts.  It has a good build and really draws you in.

The Bottom Line: All being said and done, it’s a pretty good album.  I’d recommend grabbing simply cause it’s Chris Tomlin.  He’s become a staple in modern worship music and if you’re a church goer, there are probably a few songs you’ll end up singing on here.

So why only 3 1/2 stars?  There’s not a lot about the album that really gets me excited.  I don’t get a sense of the music really pushing boundaries and changing the face of what corporate worship sounds and looks like.  To be fair, I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to do, so he’s probably doing a great job of reaching his target audience.  I should probably even bump it up to 4 stars as it’s been growing on me.  It all just comes down to preference.

If you’re a Chris Tomlin fan and like a lot of his recent stuff, this album shouldn’t disappoint.  I just recommend the Passion cut of Our God.
And I’m sure I’ll be leading another song or 2 from here before you know it.

Great question.
And lots of answers there.
I could sit and read all 130+ comments, but…
Especially when it comes to my faith community, it will look a bit different.
So I'd love to know the answer to that questions from you guys.
Especially if you attend CLC.
But even if you don't, bring it.
I wanna hear from my blog and church community.

So what song is it for you?

Got to say hi to Tifah though.  It was good to catch up.
Promise…there is more of a point to this post.

She is playing an acoustic set by herself at Asana Tea House tonight at 8pm.
I highly recommend it.
Do yourself a favor and head downtown tonight and enjoy some good music.
Enjoy.

(And if it's country, don't even bother suggesting it.  Sorry Kevin.)

Well, I reworked it just a little bit and then recorded it for our Christmas album.
Last year Randy said it would be interesting to hear copies of the song before and after receiving some critiques.  So here ya go.  The CD version starts with Rachel reciting Mary's words from the verse that the song came from.

Of course, there's nothing to say it can't still be made better.  (Hopefully I didn't make it worse.  Lol.)  So let me know what you think!
Here is both the recording from the last post, and right below it the new version of the song from the CD:

Rewritten Version

*UPDATE – Delirious? is looping along with Brenton Brown now.  Enjoy!

We got to talking about music styles and he said something that I found interesting.  Loose paraphrase to follow:

I think one of the reasons that lots of older people desire to see more hymns in the church isn’t just because of their preferences.  These are songs that have been passed down in the church from hundreds of years through the church.  Now, if this generation chooses to throw them away, they feel that they are responsible as the generation that was not able to successfully hand down this heritage.  The line is broken with them.

I thought that was a pretty interesting perspective.  One I haven’t heard or considered before.

Your thoughts?

Several weeks ago, for the last day of Re:create, I got to participate in a bonus session at EMI records with some songwriters and publishers.  As part of that workshop, we were all invited to bring an original song of our own that the group, us and one of their producers, would critique.

I have felt a desire to write for years now, but I have had a lot of trouble getting past the whole artist insecurity thing.  The idea of actually sharing something I wrote freaks me out.  A while back I collaborated with a few others to write a song while on a retreat.  Outside of that, nothing much…until recently.  I mentioned it in a Worship Confessional here.

So here’s the deal.  I got some good feedback to improve the song at that workshop.  But I also wanted to go ahead, open myself up, and share it with you, my blogging community,  as well.  Several of you are worship leaders and songwriters and the rest of you are just flat out opinionated.  So I want your critique now.  before I work on the stuff they mentioned, what do you think of it?  How could it be improved?  And don’t worry about hurting my feelings.  Trust me…I’m my own worst critic.  So bring it!  Here’s the story of how the song came about, and embedded below that is the audio file with the lyrics.  Check it out:

We used this past Christmas to do a series on worship as we shared the Christmas story.  We spoke one week about Luke chapter 1 and Mary’s magnificat, her song that she offers up to God in response to his message to her.  We talked about the importance in worship of bringing ourselves and our own talents to God.  As response after the message, during the worship, we invited people to write their own "songs" to God.  To write out their own words and thoughts from their lives.  After a few songs, we brought it down and invited people to share with our community what they had written to God.  It was amazing!

Well I figured that if we were asking people to step out of their comfort zone and share their responses to God, I needed to do the same and write a song for our body (although, I of course didn’t mention I had written it).  So this is the song we sang immediately after sharing with each other what we had written to God.  The verse was kind of inspired by that passage in Luke 1 from The Message.  It’s real simple: a verse and a chorus, with a quick recording in my office.  Here ya go:

HEAR OUR SONGS

Verse
Our souls are bursting with the news of Your good works
Our feet they dance the song of our savior
Your mercy flows in waves and washes over us
The things that you have done, they will not be forgotten

Pre-Chorus
And so we respond to You
We offer You these songs

Chorus
Hear our songs to You God
Receive these offerings from our hearts
We worship You
Hear our songs to You Jesus
This is our offering, oh God

Alright people…
fire away!!

James Taylor – Copperline
Mike Barnett – Beautiful Woman
Planetshakers – How I Love You
Bob Marley – One Love/People Get Ready
Kurt Hunter – You’re The One

All good stuff.  One "Christian" artist.  Two "local" (to O.C.) artists.
You’re turn.
What comes up when you put your iPod (or MP3 player) on shuffle?
First five.  Go.