Friday, 31 August 2007

• vacation over...

  alright, so here's the deal. we're now 26 days away from the release of our latest recording - remedy.
  
  
  
  this we are excited about. thrilled. smiling with teeth bared.
  and so, for 26 days, we will need to tell you about it. again and again.
  this is not a new phenomenon, no, this is in the long tradition of musical groups; going back to a guy named steve. he was the first to make the music and then think to tell someone about it.
  so, in the long line of the tradition of steve, i give you this:
  
  i sent an advanced copy of remedy to a friend in san diego. another friend broke into first-mentioned friend's office while first-mentioned friend was away. second-mentioned friend stole previously-mentioned advanced-copy cd. he then brazenly posted a review of it on his blog. i include it below:
  
  "ysmarko’s recommended music, volume seven
  Thursday August 23rd 2007, 6:09 am
  Filed under: music
  david crowder band’s new album, remedy (amazon has them listed as “david band crowder” — ha!).
  
  i’m currently on my 12th listen-through of my absconded pre-release copy (sent to a co-worker) of this album, which doesn’t officially release until sometime in late september. and i hardly know where to start, in terms of choosing words to describe what i’m listening to.
  
  let me start with this: for me (and i know that music is subjective), there is no god-focused collection of music better than this.
  
  now, let me back up a bit. i was a major consumer of christian worship music for a few years. this was particularly easy to do, since we got pretty much every new ccm release through our office back then, for youthworker journal record reviews. so i didn’t even have to pay for ‘em. but, at some point, it was more about being a consumer than about being consumed. it was more about what’s next and what’s new than about what’s eternal and what’s mysterious. i got bored with it all: not bored with worship; but bored with listening to worship music.
  
  except. i never got tired of the david crowder band. maybe because they really don’t quite fit a simple genre description of worship music. it’s like, rage against the machine wrote and performed songs that were almost all political in content. but that wasn’t their genre. they were an alt-rock-rap group, or some other genre combo-platter. same here. dc*b is a nu-rock band. and they sings songs about god, pretty much exclusively so.
  
  last evening, as i was driving in my car, with this new album at a particularly engulfing volume level, already singing along, i had two distinct images come to mind:
  
  first, i could already imagine — it was a strong image, i felt my throat tense with emotion as i envisioned it — singing some of these songs with thousands of youth workers this fall at the national youth workers conventions. the line “you make everything glorious” from the song, “everything glorious”, was one of those lines. i can hear it now, as i type this: 4000 youth worker’s voices joining together to sing that line. crowder stepping away from the mic, making it clear we are not singing to or about him. same with the line “you never let go” from the song by that title. mmmmm.
  
  second, i was in the midst of noticing how easy david’s voice sounds on this album. i never thought of his voice as forced before. but there’s a new level of vocal maturity here. it’s rounder, smoother, calmer, more beautiful. and then, i started to notice a similar kind of growth in the other instruments: b-wack’s tinkering and beeps and blips are more prominent, but not distracting. mike d’s keyboard (i assume it’s mike d) is downright gorgeous on the title track. jack’s guitar is extra-crunchy on “we won’t be quiet”. hogan’s violin emotively pure, like a sound of a child with a clean, pure voice, on the opening track. i could go on — the same could be said for each band member. so here’s the image i had. some things grow in a linear fashion, along a line. and that’s not necessarily bad. the next spot on the line can be better, certainly. but as i was listening, i had this image pop into my head of growth in all directions — like the growth of a firework just after bursting, or the growth of a network diagram on fast-forward. this is what the growth of dc*b feels like to me on this album.
  
  oh, and lyrics. yeah. wow. as usual. try this one on for size, from the final cut:
  
  'and the problem is this
  we were bought with a kiss
  but the cheek still turned
  even when it wasn’t hit
  
  and i don’t know
  what to do with a love like that
  and i don’t know
  how to be a love like that
  
  when all the love in the world
  is right here, among us
  and hatred too
  so we must choose
  what our hands will do
  
  where there is pain
  let there be grace
  where there is suffering
  bring serenity
  for those afraid
  help them be brave
  where there is misery
  bring expectancy
  
  and surely we can change
  surely we can change
  something
  
  and the problem it seems
  is with you and me
  not the love who came
  to repair everything
  
  and i don’t know
  what to do with a love like that
  and i don’t know
  how to be a love like that
  
  when all the love in the world
  is right here, among us
  and hatred too
  and so we must choose
  what our hands will do
  
  where there is pain
  let us bring grace
  where there is suffering
  bring serenity
  for those afraid
  let us be brave
  where there is misery
  let us bring them relief
  
  and surely we can change
  surely we can change
  o sure we can change
  something
  
  the whole world’s about to change…'
  
  ok, i’m gushing, i realize. for me, this is why god invented music. sorry you have to wait a month. pre-order, i tell you."

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