"Water & Guns" by Aaron Sprinkle View All Reviews

I’ve been around Christian music long enough to know that in order to fully appreciate the landscape; it’s required that I have mad-respect for Aaron Sprinkle. Behind the soundboard and in the studio as producer and songwriter, the man is a beast, pretty much getting his hands dirty in almost every genre on the majority of Tooth & Nail’s/BEC Recordings’ releases throughout the past two decades. A quick look at his Wiki profile will show you this guy knows music and is incredibly adept and diverse. But as an artist? His bands Poor Old Lu, Rose Blossom Punch and Fair came and went for me. And his four previous solo releases were small blips on my radar. The man is a massive workhorse, but until now, his own musical endeavors were a bit too quirky and on the fringe for my taste.

So it really surprises me that I’m sitting here, writing about one of my favorite albums of the year from none other than Aaron Sprinkle.

Water & Guns, is a bright and happy pop record. It’s full of bouncy synth leads, syncopated, and programmed drums, light choruses that float by themselves and instantly singable melodies. And all of it performed by Sprinkle himself (think Owl City and The Rocket Summer). But when you start to dig into the lyrics, you find the yang to the musical ying. Lyrics like “All my hope lies here / Six feet down with fear” on “Whisper Something.” “I’m feeling borrowed, feeling blue / You didn’t notice, shame on you” on “Can’t Last Forever.” “When your life rips at the seams / When it seems like the worst is really happening / When you can’t see the light / It’ll be alright” on “It’ll Be Alright.” In fact, I could just post almost every line to every song. Aaron is struggling with quite a bit lyrically, yet we’re dancing through a field of flowers on a clear blue sky. This is musical bipolarity at its best, but what’s really going on?

“I want to relate to people,” says Sprinkle. “I wanted to be honest, both musically and lyrically. I’ve realized that every time I’ve been brutally honest in an intimate setting, I’ve never been greeted poorly. This is what I like, this is how I feel, this is who I am.”

Closing Thoughts:
This album is a beautiful accomplishment for an artist that has been around as long as Aaron has. Aaron’s lyrics deal with a full range of human emotion. They speak of grace and blessings surrounded by sin and death. They tell stories of perseverance through trail. They are filled with a desperation for relief from all-consuming struggles. In other-words, the address real life. But what I love is that, as believers, we are allowed to experience the full range of emotions that God has given us, under the context of a bright and sunny love that continually shines down upon us from above. Every day is new, and the sky is blue and the birds are singing. It’s that full picture that I believe Aaron set out to paint. He not only relies on the lyric to tell his story, but he allows the music to complete the full picture and balance the life so many of us truely stumble through.

Song to Download:
"Can't Last Forever"

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