Copious Notes

Casting Crowns are Megan Garrett, Brian Scoggin, Mark Hall, Hector Cervantes, Chris Huffman, Melodee DeVevo and Juan DeVevo. Photo by David Dobson.

The first few chords of “Until the Whole World Hears” gave me high hopes for Casting Crowns‘ fourth studio album. The title track opens with a drum crash and grinding guitar intro that seems to portend the unlikely Christian chart toppers fully embracing and enjoying their role as musicians.

Casting Crowns’ story makes you want to root for the band: A church praise band, they caught the ear of producers with a demo CD and rose to the top of the charts with albums that spoke directly to mainstream evangelicals. But they reportedly still make sure they are back at their Atlanta-area church each week. Nice story, and they’ve recorded several strong albums marked by youth pastor-frontman Mark Hall’s plainspoken lyrics.

But how far will that carry you? On the latest album, Casting Crowns assigns itself the task of telling listeners about Jesus and stumbling into creative doldrums. That’s exemplified by “Joyful, Joyful,” Crowns’ effort to put their own mark on Beethoven’s timeless “Ode to Joy” melody and subsequent hymn by Henry van Dyke. Their mark is to load it with orchestrations and harmonies that predictably soar at the end. It’s a sense of grandure, but no sense of, uh, joy.

That’s “Until the Whole World Hears” in a nutshell. The musicianship is fine, as is the production by Mark A. Miller. The sentiments are valid, and frequently lovely. But it all sounds like stuff we’ve heard before from Casting Crowns and plenty of other contemporary Christian music artists. Most of the tunes sound like retreads of Crowns hits from the past. But they lack the urgency of songs like “What if His People Prayed?” the poignance of “Praise You in This Storm” or lyrical craftsmanship of “Slow Fade,” all songs that helped make Casting Crowns one of the top-selling acts in Christian music history.

With that kind of record, and artists from Steven Curtis Chapman to the David Crowder Band releasing vital, creative albums this fall, a routine CCM effort just doesn’t cut it.

Album No. 4 is often the one where artists ascend to another level, after getting a few albums and far too many tours under their belts. Unfortunately for Casting Crowns, this seems to be the album where the band is losing its voice.

Switchfoot is guitarist Drew Shirley, bassist Tim Foreman, guitarist and vocalist Jon Foreman, drummer Chad Butler and keyboard and guitar player Jerome Fontamillas.

After two side projects by frontman Jon Foreman, it was easy to start wondering if Switchfoot was still a priority for the singer-songwriter and his fellow band members.

The group delivers the answer to that question Tuesday, and it is an emphatic yes.

Foreman’s forays of the past two years included a series of seasonal solo EP’s and the duo Fiction Family that he formed with Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins. Both were outstanding efforts — the Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer quartet of EP’s topped my list of Christian music last year. But Hello Hurricane shows Foreman still rocks, as hard as ever, with his bandmates. If anything, it sounds like maybe after getting some acoustic side projects out of his system, he was ready to rock. Hello Hurricane boasts the most blazing lineup of any Switchfoot album since the band’s early years.

That’s not news to anyone who has heard the leadoff single, Mess of Me, which launches an arsenal of distorted guitar, something we hear a lot on the album. On recent albums, Switchfoot has perfected an approach to the aching ballad, something we do get here with a few selections such as Always – the prettiest thing Switchfoot has done since 24 on The Beautiful Letdown (2004). But this is at its essence a rock record with the guitars, drums, and Foreman’s voice pushing the top of the envelope.

Lyrically, this is a familiar Switchfoot blend of introspection, activism, and spirituality. Mess of Me, for instance, is the latest reiteration of, “This is your life, are you who you want to be?” and This is the Sound is the most forceful of several challenges to the status quo. While Switchfoot has trended toward the mainstream martket, Christian fans should cotton to statements of faith such as Your Love is a Song and Yet.

And the album is a cause for fans in general to rejoice that while Foreman has taken on different forms over the years, the mothership of Switchfoot is as vital as ever.

Steven Curtis Champan. Photo courtesy of Sparrow Records.

Steven Curtis Chapman opens his new album singing, “Heaven is the face of a little girl,” and you know he’s going to go there.

Beauty Will Rise is Chapman’s first new album since the tragic death of his 5-year-old adopted daughter Maria Sue Chunxi in May 2008. The proverbial “they” say great pain often yields great art, and this album certainly reinforces that point, in part by making it clear that Chapman would give everything, including his great songs, to have his little girl give him another hug and syrup kiss.

But the Chapman does not wallow in despair on this album. A palpable sense of loss pervades the entire record, but there is also an open window to the soul of a man who is finding a way to move on and whose faith has been strengthened through every parent’s nightmare.

On Just Have to Wait, he talks to Maria, telling her how he looks forward to seeing her again and how the family is doing — even dealing with the aftermath of her death. There is striking five-song set of expressions of faith beginning with Our God is Control and concluding with Jesus Will Meet You There – “When you think you’ve hit the bottom, and the bottom gives way . . . “

Instrumentally, this is Chapman’s most unadorned, elemental recording in years, beautifully employing cello, dulcimer and other bits of acoustic comfort. We hear him in full command of his craft, all the better to articulate tough emotions that could easily become saccharine and cloying in a lesser artist’s hands.

This record will never be an easy listen. It will never be separated from the sorrow that was its catalyst. But it is a journey you are richer for taking, from those difficult first words to the final moments when the voices of a children’s chorus rise in Spring is Coming.

Relient K is Jon Schneck, Ethan Luck, Matthew Thiessen, Matt Hoopes, John Warne.

Review: Relient K, Forget and Not Slow Down

Direct comparisons between bands can seem a bit disrespectful, and maybe easy. But the parallels between the Beach Boys and Relient K are a bit too hard to avoid in light of the Canton, Ohio band’s recent offerings.

It’s not that Matthew Thiessen and Co. sound like the California boys, though their last album, Fivescore and Seven Years Ago (2007), did include some familiar harmonies. It’s more that this is a band that bowed with numbers like Sadie Hawkins Dance and other tunes that made them seem like a sonic confection — appealing as a cupcake, but not much to it.

And that’s a sound that has never gone away. But what has been growing in each ReK album, particularly since mmhmm (2004) is a musicianship and thoughfulness that make each album a richer experience. Occasionally it’s gone wrong — I was one who found Fivescore’s Deathbed a bit much — but each album has been a growth spurt, and little to nothing is wrong with Forget and Not Slow Down.

The immediate impression is this is a meditation on loss, but more about regrouping than moping. Therapy is the linchpin track, describing Thiessen’s very real experience of self isolation during the time he wrote the album — “You won’t take my calls, and that makes God the only one who’s left here listening.”

Thiessen has developed a knack for taking the spiritual and putting it in temporal terms without diminishing its gravity. He can also take a well-worn cliche and give it new meaning such as Part of It, where he invokes the phrase, “It’s not the end of the world,” and adds, “When a nightmare finally does unfold, perspective is a lovely hand to hold.”

The notes hold equal “Ah” moments like Candlelight where the jumpy pop melts into into a lilting, swirling finale evocative of the lyric, “A solar flare shines through her hair.”

It’s one of numerous moments that could make a listener wonder how long Thiessen will find the pop band format sufficient for conveying his ideas.

One way that Relient K does not mirror the Beach Boys is in popularity. While they are one of the biggest bands in Christian rock and a significant player in the modern rock scene, sales of one Beach Boys hit probably equal ReK’s entire catalog. Forget and Not Slow Down will not change that. Despite its excellence, it may be the band’s least radio-friendly effort ever. But it is an effort that should make serious pop music listeners, Christian and otherwise, take notice.

David Crowder*Band CHURCH MUSIC Intro from sixstepsrecords on Vimeo.

Review: David Crowder Band - Church Music

If this album were coming from any other artist, the title would rightfully lead you to believe this was a worship or hymns album.

But this is David Crowder Band, a group where nothing easily fits into a category.

The group comes across as very rootsy, but the music often sweeps over us with an electronic wash. Crowder has this idiosyncratic sense of humor, but his music and the message are delivered with incredible seriousness — he’s the artist who can take a stage with a keytar or Guitar Hero controller, joke about it, and by the chorus make you completely forget he’s playing a silly instrument.

Church Music is neither a collection of old hymns or easily digestible choruses. It is, in the tradition of Crowder’s Collision albums, a complete experience. There are songs that will ride on their own, but it is an album that is best experienced as a complete package and will take you in some interesting places like late in the album when steer into Church Music - Dance, a song that could have been played in Studio 54 in its heyday, and the blistering rock of God Almighty, None Compares. The album makes a progression from contemplation to celebration, like a well-planned church service.

David Crowder Band has a lot of great hits like No One Like You and Foreverandever Etc. But complete packages like this count as the Crowdster’s most satisfying work. Just revel in the contradictions.

Wondering how Crowder will handle this album live? Well, you can find out when Crowder plays Southland Christian Church with Seabird and Danyew at 8 p.m. Nov. 6.

Two concerts that we mentioned in recent posts have been cancelled.
■ Derek Webb, whom we profiled in the last rc talk, will not play Lexington next week. The Dame, where he was scheduled to play, has closed, and he has not secured another venue. Webb’s publicist said he hopes to schedule a Lexington concert later.

■ Starlit Platoon, which was scheduled to play South Elkhorn Baptist Church on Oct. 10 has broken up, so that show is scrubbed.

Jeremy Camp listens for the audience to sing back the chorus to "Tonight" during his Thursday night performance at Quest Community Church. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

After nearly an hour of performing rousing rock ‘n’ roll (and encouraging the audience to “dance like nerds” with him), ballads and worship, Jeremy Camp sat down at an upright piano Thursday night and sang a spiritual.

“Give me Jesus, give me Jesus,” he sang, bathed in lavender light. “You can have all of this world. Give me Jesus.”

Hunched over the keyboard, his face shielded from the crowd, Camp’s voice filled the room with the same kind of power that seemed to exist in his biceps — toned by px90 workouts — and simultaneously had the tremor of a young man who’s already endured some trials, including losing a wife to cancer and an unborn child in a miscarriage.

Natalie Grant delivered a surprisingly rockin' set Thursday at Quest.

Whether in recordings or on stage, there is nary an un-genuine moment from Jeremy Camp, which is a big part of why he can so seamlessly rock, worship and sing empathetic ballads — I’ll Take You Back is still his best tune, which he performed Thursday with a bit more fire than some acoustic renditions he’s delivered in the past.

The new sanctuary at Quest Community Church proved to be an ideal venue for Camp, as the 2,400 seat auditorium would probably be great for any artist seeking a midsized room. That describes a lot of Christian artists. It’s not clear whether Quest intends to use its facility as a Christian concert hall — this show was booked by an outside promoter — but you have to think word will get out about the room, which you had to keep reminding yourself is a church.

And there were two other artists on the bill to testify for it. Natalie Grant played right before Camp with a more rock oriented show than you might expect and a moving rendition of God of This City, and Bebo Norman opened the night flanked by a superior sideman in Gabe Scott, who flipped between guitar, keyboards and hammer dulcimer.

Bebo Norman (right) and multi-instrumentalist Gabe Scott (left) opened Thursday night.

Quest Community Church was hosting its first concert in its new 2,400-seat auditorium.

University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra director John Nardolillo, shown conducting a rehearsal in March. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

More than a decade ago, Everett McCorvey started building the University of Kentucky’s opera program into a nationally recognized boutique for training young voices and presenting exciting programs. The middle of this decade, John Nardolillo took over the UK Symphony Orchestra and a similar ascension quickly began.

Friday night, those two success stories came together as the voice department’s newest teacher stepped in front of the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra for its season opener in the Singletary Center for the Arts Concert Hall.

Soprano Cynthia Lawrence, shown at a rehearsal on Tuesday.

Soprano Cynthia Lawrence took the stage to open the second half of Friday’s concert in a billowy black gown which sparkled like this was Live from Lincoln Center or something. And when she opened her mouth for a performance of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs, it sounded that way.

Though Lawrence, who now holds UK’s endowed chair in music (voice), was making her big debut as a faculty member, Four Last Songs is not a diva show-off piece in the sense of rafter-rattling high notes, ornamental trills and the like. It doesn’t even give the soprano a big finish, as the orchestra closes the piece as if the sun has set on the voice.

But if you are looking for interpretive skills, Strauss gives the singer a chance to put those on full display, and Lawrence did. She encourages listeners to read the work’s poetic text, but the poetry was in her voice Friday night. Through masterful phrasing and control, she gave the audience a very clear idea where this piece was going. And yes, she did have moments of spectacle and sublime beauty that left you marveling that this woman was not an imported guest soloist. She is UK faculty.

What’s more, she aggressively went after the job after spending a few weeks here working with singers at UK last fall. That an artist of Lawrence’s caliber — a celebrated soprano at the Metropolitan Opera and many, many other stages — vigorously pursued a post here says as much about the growth of the School of Music as the Met audition wins and concerts at Carnegie Hall.

What was really striking was how the orchestra responded to Lawrence. Her performance followed good though unremarkable performances of W.A. Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture and Symphony No. 39 in the first half.

When Lawrence started singing though, the orchestra followed her lead, including several passionate solos from violinist Jessica Tzou, flutist Aaron Sexton and others.

And the passion continued into the concert closer, Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration. With all hands on deck, the orchestra unleased a powerful performance that convinced you that its Dec. 3 performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 “Titan” should not be missed.

Then again, the way things have been going, you could say that about the whole season.

Prior to the concert, Narolillo and UK President Lee Todd announced a gift from the family of Jan Karon, a master violinist and violin maker who died last year, which will add $400,000 to the orchestra’s endowment established by Keeneland and Maker’s Mark. Karon was a native of Poland who survived Nazi concentration camps in World War II and played in orchestras in Warsaw, Krakow and Houston, where he was concertmaster. After retirement, he settled in Lexington. The gift from his daughter Dr. Magdalene Karon and her husband Dr. John Stewart, will underwrite the concertmaster’s position, which has been renamed the Jan Karon Concertmaster. Tzou is the first to hold that chair.

Skillet are drummer Jen Ledger, guitarist Ben Kasica, bassist and lead singer John Cooper and keyboardist and guitarist Korey Cooper. Photo courtesy Atlantic Records.

Review: Skillet’s Awake

On the surface, Skillet is just a four-piece rock ‘n’ roll band with a raspy-voiced lead singer.

But the Memphis quartet has done what a lot of raspy rock quartets would love to do: rise to the top of Christian rock and deliver yet another killer, accomplished album.

That’s because Skillet’s a raspy four-piece rock act that’s grown as musicians and songwriters. A very teen-targeted act, a lot of the group’s original core audience is now in college or careers - this is part of why The Older I Get, a hit off Skillet’s 2006 album Comatose, is such a big sing along at shows.

Awake yet again gives original and new Skillet fans a lot to listen too as frontman John Cooper recognizes that songwriting is an abstract art. The band that once sang Jesus was, “the best kept secret of my generation,” and recorded an album called Alien Youth (in 2001) now writes with less specificity but the music is as interesting and compelling as ever.

It’s Not Me, It’s You returns to the theme of a teen trapped in an abusive family - well, that’s how you might read it in the context of past hits such as the anti-suicide anthem The Last Night. But lyrically, It’s Not Me is far less specific, but no less riveting: “Let’s get the story straight, You were a poison, You flooded through my veins.”

The physical album closer - digital versions come with some extras - Lucy is more oblique and compelling, a graveside conversation to a . . . a girlfriend? Wife? Child? The key is promise of a heavenly reunion, but like many other tracks here, it can move around the listener’s demographics and lifestyles.

Skillet is maturing, but certainly not running too far from its bread and butter, hard rock anthems like Hero and Monster, the first two singles, which were being previewed for fans on tour this summer.

Not that there aren’t new dimensions to the music. Skillet’s guitars usually grind and drone, but Ben Kasica takes a few sterling solos here, and on her first album, drummer Jen Ledger shows off some vocal chops.

Awake confirms Skillet isn’t just some old rock quartet. It’s a great rock quartet.

Note: Derek Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome, which we reviewed a few weeks ago, is out in stores today.

Mat Kearney. Photo courtesy of Columbia Records.

Review: Mat Kearney — City of Black & White

Mat Kearney approaches sophomore album pressure in a different way: He sings about it . . . in the opening lines of the opening track of his sophomore album.

Here we go at it three years later
Will you help me to dream it all up again?
Tired of the same song everyone’s singing
Rather be lost with you instead

Kearney’s 2006 Columbia Records debut, Nothing Left to Lose, was a mainstream hit and also found the artist embraced by Christian listeners for his faith and songs that certainly had faith-based underpinnings. Now, the aforementioned three years later, Kearney is back with a new album that should reaffirm the Christian market’s faith in him as well as his status as one of the leaders in the current singer-songrwriter ranks that includes Jason Mraz and Gavin DeGraw.

City of Black & White has some ambition, clocking in with 14 tracks that run around an hour. It also finds Kearney diversifying his sound and subject matter. The unity of the album is a steady echo, as if we are always navigating concrete and glass towers in an urban jungle. That best resolves in the title track, which ends in lonely threads that sound like dulcimer and slide guitar.

The lyrical content is empathetic, individualistic stories and portraits, Annie being the most immediate and memorable. Most of the songs have a spiritual interpretation, if not an overt message. With City of Black & White, Kearney has cleared the sophomore hurdle, and his future is sounding good.

The Ichthus Battle is set: Get your coffee, kids, because the Ichthus Festival’s Battle of the Bands will get started at 9 a.m. June 11, the first full day of the fest. Nine bands will be vying for a spot on the Ichthus Main Stage during the festival, and that winner will advance to a national competition between bands that win battles at other fests during the summer, with the possibility of a Word Records deal being the big prize.

The contendah’s are:

Eyesuponus of Versailles, which won a secondary stage spot in Ichthus’ first band battle in 2007.

7:13 of Paintsville

Crosslife of Owingsville

Too Many Drummers of Lexington

The Lee Roessler Band of Alexandria

Allison Stafford of Bradfordsville

Chasing Canaan of Shreveport, La.

Calling Glory of Athens, Tenn.

Those seven acts got in through online voting in the Ascenxion Scout Competition. Two additional bands made it through preliminary competitions.

Wisdom’s Call of Elizabethtown won a competition in Tennessee.

Divine Day, which was an Ichthus winner last year, won an Ohio competition.

The whole festival, numero 40 for the fish, is now under two weeks away. Keep checking in here and on my Twitter page for updates, stories and info. At Twitter, we use the hashtag #ichthus.

Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman on stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, April 26, 2009. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

When you get a ticket to a concert featuring Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, there are moments you hope for.

Like, the pair riffing on each other’s gargantuan catalogues. After Chapman finished his first-half solo set at Rupp Arena Sunday night, Smith came out and said, “You know, you didn’t sing one of my favorite songs. May I?” and launched into the Chapman classic, The Great Adventure.

Smith in the opening number, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Chapman complimented Smith saying, “You should do an album of Steven Curtis Chapman songs,” and then returned the favor singing Smith’s Place in this World.

They were moments that remind you iconic artists are fully capable of appreciating other iconic artists’ work. They can also razz each other like guys standing around the grill on Saturday afternoon.

In one of several age-related jokes, 46-year-old Chapman lauded 51-year-old Smith for “blazing a trail,” for him. “So I blazed a trail?” Smith replied. “At least I wasn’t clogging in Opryland,” he said, referring to one of Chapman’s pre-contemporary-Christian-music superstar gigs.

It was an evening of good humor and deep appreciation for the singers, and basically a two-fer for the audience that was nowhere near as big as the dual-headliner bill deserved. Rupp, in it’s 5,000-ish seat Heart of Rupp Arena configuration, looked to be about half full. Maybe Christian stars shouldn’t compete with regularly-scheduled church activities, because the Lexington crowd is usually much more supportive of Christian pop.

The crowd that did turn out got to see Smith and Chapman together and in individual sets, which were strikingly different.

Smith had the most cohesive musical presentation of the pair. Taking the stage on his own in the second half, he offered a few blasts from the past, including Secret Ambition from the 1988 release i2Eye and Go West Young Man from the album of the same name. He also played The Giving from his 2000 instrumental album, Freedom, which sounded surprisingly good without an acoustic piano or orchestra.

But Smith’s recent focus has been worship music, and once he launched into a set from his current A New Hallelujah album and his Worship efforts, Smith was deep into his own element. And while some of us may lament a dearth of his greatest hits in Smith’s recent shows, he is a compelling worship leader.

Chapman sings Yours, a song he said had taken on new meaning since the death of his daughter.

Chapman’s set was an all-too-modest greatest hits set. What was striking was, it is difficult to remember a Christian artist with as focused a testimony as Chapman currently has. Most everyone in the house knew that last May 21, Chapman’s 5-year-old adoptive daughter Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman was killed in a tragic accident at the family’s home.

Any question as to whether Chapman would address his loss was quickly answered when he introduced his 2007 hit, Yours. He said the tragedy forced him to reconsider the implications of the lyrics about turning everything over to God, and later in the set said he had a new perspective on a lot of his music. He also said he thought he would never be able to sing Cinderella, a song he wrote for his daughters, again. But he did at his first concert back on stage last July, and performed it last night, beautifully isolating the final line in the song about a dad having to let go of his little girls as they grow up: “I know the truth is the dance will go on.”

Chapman actually shared his testimony about Maria, the third child he and his wife adopted from China, in a great little song arc, concluding with God is God, a song about trusting the almighty from his 2001 album Declaration.

Chapman and Smith combined for a tidy three hour show, including an intermission and pitch for Chapman’s Show Hope charity which supports orphan children. They both addressed their Kentucky connections, Chapman talking about his Paducah home and brief stint as a pre-med student at Georgetown College and native West Virginian Smith talking about his Rupp Arena memories, including concerts there when he was Amy Grant’s keyboard player.

The sweetest moments between the two though were not so much when they bantered or played each other’s tunes, but when they were simply there for each other. Smith told the crowd the original set list did not include Chapman’s I Will be Here, and he would have refused to tour without Chapman including it, before he played keyboard’s for Chapman’s rendition of the classic.

And half way through Smith’s Friends, Chapman strode out to sing the chorus, and Smith deferred to him for the final line, “A lifetime’s not too long to live as friends.”