An encouraging and underrated album
Posted March 13, 2009
By Nathan,
One of the many noticeable things about Jeremy Riddle’s new album right off the bat is the cover: sitting in front of presumably apartment buildings is a lion and a lamb. This picture clearly represents the latter part of Riddle’s new album title, The Now and Not Yet, where the peace between the animals may come from Isaiah 11:6. But there is a more significant meaning behind the cover: the architect of the hit single “sweetly broken” has broken his silence with his sophomore album.
One of the biggest mistakes a person could make while scouting this CD out is assuming that the song titles portray the depth of Jeremy Riddles album. This could not be farther from the truth. It’s true that the CD does have downfalls musically with “prepare ye the way of the lord”, a pretty weak upbeat worship song which makes Lincoln Brewster look like a master, and the weak ending song “I am redeemer” which is almost as dry as toast. But beyond some other simple and unoriginal praise and worship songs (“as above so below” and “one thing”), there really isn’t that much to complain about considering the probable low expectations on complexity.
Furthermore there are some unexpected highlights which show up and peak with the piano fueled “prayers for the Church”, a surprisingly good, emotional, adult contemporary ballad. The emotion in “The one the only” may lack haunt and a major distinguishing musical component it’s a fine song like guitar driven “one thing” where Riddle’s vocals shine. The most up-tempo song in the album is “joyful noise”, (which is on par with a Lincoln Brewster song) a song which cleverly starts with nothing but Riddles voice before taking the same words and speeding them up.
“Bless His Name”, “Prepare Ye the way of the Lord”, and “surrendering in praise”; with song titles like these a person (the same person) would assume ‘been there done that’, however the messages of The Now and Not Yet are more complex than face value. The singer in “Surrendered in praise” wisely puts his faith in Christ (‘My strength it fails and my courage fades /In my distress I cry aloud to You’), and “the one the only” represents Riddles very passionate and reverent approach to song writing.
Surrender to God is a reoccurring theme on the album with “as above so below” (‘Whom else can we look to' /There is no help but You’) and “to be like you” (‘Broken am I /Full of discord am I /Hungry for change’). Whenever Riddles mentions himself it isn’t a positive as he leaves that for the God of the universe; a God which he yearns to know on “the one thing”: ‘This one thing I much desire /And to this end to never part /A devoted and simple life /A focus of mind and heart… I want to know Jesus’.
The Now and Not Yet is good sophomore album, but one which lacks a wide selection of solid radio singles. And Jeremy Riddle does fall for clichés and runs into lyrical shallowness (“joyful noise”, and “bless his name” among others) but the overall theme of this CD is God is everything, He is worthy to be worshiped, and we are helpless without him. Those are lasting messages that we should never forget.
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