david crowder band’s new album, (amazon has them listed as “david band crowder” — ha!).

i’m currently on my 12th listen-through of my absconded pre-release copy (sent to a co-worker) of this album, which doesn’t officially release until sometime in late september. and i hardly know where to start, in terms of choosing words to describe what i’m listening to.

let me start with this: for me (and i know that music is subjective), there is no god-focused collection of music better than this.

now, let me back up a bit. i was a major consumer of christian worship music for a few years. this was particularly easy to do, since we got pretty much every new ccm release through our office back then, for youthworker journal record reviews. so i didn’t even have to pay for ‘em. but, at some point, it was more about being a consumer than about being consumed. it was more about what’s next and what’s new than about what’s eternal and what’s mysterious. i got bored with it all: not bored with worship; but bored with listening to worship music.

except. i never got tired of the david crowder band. maybe because they really don’t quite fit a simple genre description of worship music. it’s like, rage against the machine wrote and performed songs that were almost all political in content. but that wasn’t their genre. they were an alt-rock-rap group, or some other genre combo-platter. same here. dc*b is a nu-rock band. and they sings songs about god, pretty much exclusively so.

last evening, as i was driving in my car, with this new album at a particularly engulfing volume level, already singing along, i had two distinct images come to mind:

first, i could already imagine — it was a strong image, i felt my throat tense with emotion as i envisioned it — singing some of these songs with thousands of youth workers this fall at the national youth workers conventions. the line “you make everything glorious” from the song, “everything glorious”, was one of those lines. i can hear it now, as i type this: 4000 youth worker’s voices joining together to sing that line. crowder stepping away from the mic, making it clear we are not singing to or about him. same with the line “you never let go” from the song by that title. mmmmm.

second, i was in the midst of noticing how easy david’s voice sounds on this album. i never thought of his voice as forced before. but there’s a new level of vocal maturity here. it’s rounder, smoother, calmer, more beautiful. and then, i started to notice a similar kind of growth in the other instruments: b-wack’s tinkering and beeps and blips are more prominent, but not distracting. mike d’s keyboard (i assume it’s mike d) is downright gorgeous on the title track. jack’s guitar is extra-crunchy on “we won’t be quiet”. hogan’s violin emotively pure, like a sound of a child with a clean, pure voice, on the opening track. i could go on — the same could be said for each band member. so here’s the image i had. some things grow in a linear fashion, along a line. and that’s not necessarily bad. the next spot on the line can be better, certainly. but as i was listening, i had this image pop into my head of growth in all directions — like the growth of a firework just after bursting, or the growth of a network diagram on fast-forward. this is what the growth of dc*b feels like to me on this album.

oh, and lyrics. yeah. wow. as usual. try this one on for size, from the final cut:

and the problem is this
we were bought with a kiss
but the cheek still turned
even when it wasn’t it

and i don’t know
what to do with a love like that
and i don’t know
how to be a love like that

when all the love in the world
is right here, among us
and hatred too
so we must choose
what our hands will do

where there is pain
let there be grace
where there is suffering
bring serenity
for those afraid
help them be brave
where there is misery
bring expectancy

and surely we can change
surely we can change
something

and the problem it seems
is with you and me
not the love who came
to repair everything

and i don’t know
what to do with a love like that
and i don’t know
how to be a love like that

when all the love in the world
is right here, among us
and hatred too
and so we must choose
what our hands will do

where there is pain
let us bring grace
where there is suffering
bring serenity
for those afraid
let us be brave
where there is misery
let us bring them relief

and surely we can change
surely we can change
o sure we can change
something

the whole world’s about to change…

ok, i’m gushing, i realize. for me, this is why god invented music. sorry you have to wait a month. pre-order, i tell you.