C.S. Lews Would Be Proud - If He Liked Hard Rock
Posted August 01, 2007
By Epilogue,
When I picked up 'Wavorly' at the nearest Christian Bookstore, the cashier beamed me a blinding smile. 'This is one of the best rocks CD's ever,' she said brightly. 'I highly recommend it.' Obviously, I presumed, this CD must be pretty good.
And it was. From the classical string introduction, I knew this was band that was different from the rest of the metal infused, hard rock, Christian artists - and they weren't as unnecessarily wild as the rest of them. The strings slowly faded into heavy rock guitar, which evolved into the frenzied guitar riff of the band's first rock single 'Madmen.' The whole song was excellent, with well crafted lyrics that spoke out against our culture's obsession with entertainment. The next song, 'Part One', came in with a screeching background guitar and poetic lyrics about a man in the 'Great Divorce' that C.S. Lewis vividly describes in his fictional book. All in all, the combination of first class rock music and excellent, C.S. Lewis inspired intelligent lyrics had me intrigued.
Not every song is on something super deep or super poetic. The song 'Summer's Song' is a quiet acoustic romance song, which I think is better than most, with its catchy chorus and evident call to purity before marriage, without leaving behind its hopelessly romantic lyrics. And then there is the song 'Praise and Adore (Some Live Without It)' which is one of the best songs on the CD, and one of the best worship songs I've heard in a while. The song beautifully proclaims 'So I praise and adore/You made the world beautiful/ And I can't stand and deny/ You created Life/ And some live without it.' The addition of the 'some live without it' makes the song really powerful, as it laments the fact that some people will go through this whole life without recognizing and knowing Jesus as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Very powerful. 'Sleeper' and 'How Have We Come So Far' are not quiet, but not quite that rocky, and both are excellent, earnest, songs.
But that covers the softer songs. 'Endless Day', about a man waiting for heaven is pretty hard, as is 'Twenty-Twenty'. I thought 'Time I Understood' was fantastic with its heavy palm muted intro riff, and energetic verses. 'Forgive and Forget' is one of the hardest songs, and it comes along with one of the album's catchiest choruses: 'How could I choose not to forgive/ With everything you choose to forget?/ And still we will be loved.'
Then there is hardest song (in my opinion), and also the most poetic: The Tale of the Dragon's Defeat. The epic song seems to start as a metaphor for Jesus coming to the world to save His bride, but then evolves into a direct line from Christ to Satan: 'I died so she could have more/ the Life that she now finds in me/ is the tale of the dragon's defeat.'
At the end of the album is short strings composition; their seems to be little classical music performances after the end of many of the songs also which is a nice touch - it adds sophistication and beauty to the bombastic songs with the roaring electric guitars.
Because of the originality of the band, their poetic lyrics, the good message, and their powerful sound, I give them the highest rating. But what is the moral of this review? Trust the cashier at your local Christian Bookstore.
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