Artist: David Crowder Band
Album: A Collision
Format: Audio CD MP3
Bitrate: ??? kbps
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Some albums demand attention, but occasionally one wallops you upside the head and overwhelms your senses. Fans apparently felt that way about Illuminate, the 2003 release that sold more than 200,000 copies and put David Crowder Band on the A-list of Christian music. As for those unimpressed with this popular modern worship band thus far, their minds might well change with A Collision.
An album like this is intimidating to review because it provides so much (73 minutes) to absorb, interpret, and comment on. Supposedly, Illuminate was deeply inspired by the properties of light as an illustration of the relationship between God and man, but the theme generally didn't manifest itself in the songs. Likewise, A Collision has little to do with tangential metaphors pertaining to atomic physics, but it's now clear that these illustrations aren't so much the focus as they are meant to stir ideas in tandem with the worshipful songwriting. This disc's tongue-in-cheek epilogue sums up Crowder's intentions best: he's just trying to make you sing and glorify God.
Nevertheless, the album's title comes from the band's concert sign-off: "Where our depravity meets His divinity it is a beautiful collision." This poetic expression of grace is explored further in "A Beautiful Collision," but I like to think the title is also a reference to the album's musical range—a broad Kingdom perspective that combines modern pop and rock with elements of alternative folk, bluegrass, and even a gospel spiritual. Crowder has divided the album into 4 parts, and each is worth exploring independently.
Part A is preparatory, invocative, and most comparable to what listeners have come to expect from David Crowder Band. It starts unconventionally with a brief, old-sounding cover of Loretta Lynn's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven," followed by a sparse piano 'n' strings call to worship, "Come and Listen." But after this prologue, the album really begins with radio single "Here Is Our King," an upbeat modern worship song very much like "O Praise Him," but rendered with more spirit. Ballad "Wholly Yours" gives worshipful wordplay on the title and a smart exhortation on grace: "But the harder I try, the more clearly can I feel the depth of our fall and the weight of it all/And so this might could be the most impossible thing/Your grandness in me making me clean." Then "Foreverandever Etc." concludes the chapter with an impressively produced praise punk rocker akin to "No One Like You."
The band already dazzles with improved sound and arrangements, but Part B demonstrates how much they've grown. Songs here touch on brokenness with Psalm-like uncertainty, prompting the band to mix styles with the emotions. A somber spiritual precedes the dark alt-pop of "Be Lifted/Hope Rising," which evolves into a joyful chorus of bluegrass. This is followed by a more traditional bluegrass cover—fiddles and all—of Hank Williams Sr.'s "I Saw the Light," performed with country great Marty Stuart. Then they cover Sufjan Stevens's melancholic-yet-hopeful "O God Where Are You Now," adapting the folksy sound for alt-pop with a simple-yet-transcendent sing-along chorus.
It's Part C that goes further to prove the band hasn't just broadened their sound, but also evolved it. After effectively setting up a time for reflection with the beautiful "(B Quiet Interlude)," they break into impressive art rock that reveals the influence of co-producer Tedd T. and their former tour-mates in Mute Math. These tracks revolve around becoming a new transformation through Christ, illustrated with "Come Awake," which begins with the EEG of a dying patient, only to awaken with an alarm clock during an awe-inspiring swell, and then concludes with a heartbeat. "Do Not Move" is a harder rocking cornucopia of alternative rock styles, "Our Happy Home" creatively adapts an old 17th century folk hymn to modern worship, and the uncommonly good "You Are My Joy" rivals the soaring Brit-pop of Coldplay's X&Y.
Part D is the least effective, though it provides a celebratory conclusion of encouragement. Like Matt Redman's "Undignified," the band resorts to their familiar penchant for dance rock with "We Win!" designed to pump up concert-goers. The giant arena rock ballad "Rescue Is Coming" is technically the finale, suggesting to the downtrodden that, "It's just enough to believe." The album ends with the aforementioned epilogue, a mock interview set to a Ralph Vaughn Williams composition that unfolds into a brief closing song—very clever, but perhaps not the track listeners will regularly return to.
This is the type of album that makes me go back to the beginning after it ends, because it's so epic, textured, and insightful. Even if it's not your cup of tea, A Collision is unquestionably ambitious and inspired, unlike any modern worship album to this point. Though the average congregation won't find new standards to add to their repertoire, A Collision is nonetheless an expression of worship—one so catchy and creative, fans will clamor to David Crowder Band concerts to sing praises to God at the top of their lungs.
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