"Oh, man! This album was produced by Marc Byrd and it sounds like Coldplay? This is gonna suck."

That was my immediate reaction when opening up the a package that came from Essential Records last month, and reading the rundown on new band Leeland from their PR department. I've been doing this armchair critic thing for long enough to know that you should always take PR materials with a grain of salt. Often they make exaggerated claims or comparisons about the artists they're trying to sell that simply don't ring true when one actually listens to a record. I knew that going on, and in this case, I really hoped that what I was reading didn't reflect what I was about to hear. I enjoy Coldplay, but I don't need another Christian band trying to sound like them, or their guitar-less counterparts in Keane. it's too easy of a trend to mimic at this point, especially for "modern worship" bands, a genre that the rap sheet didn't explicitly place them in, but listening to the CD, you can tell that's more comfortable. I guess listening to a record doesn't change who produced it, so while I thankfully didn't encounter a total Coldplay ripoff (I can hear the influence, but it's not that big of a deal), I still had to deal with the fact that it had been touched by my absolute least favorite producer of all time, Marc Byrd. Zthankfully, he and frequent behind-the-scenes collaborator Steve Hindalong didn't totally take the glisten out of this young band's sound, like the usual flattened mush that I generally hear on records they've worked on. They actually only touched 5 of the 11 songs on Sound of Melodies, and only two of those are boring. The rest of the album was handled by Matt Bronleewe, who has proven to be a producer with a good ear for a pop hook ever since the days when he worked with groups like Jars of Clay and Plumb. He might not get an innovative sound out of a band who doesn't have it in themselves to be that inventive, but he can do some good stuff with bands that try to bring something different to the table.

I'm not sure if Leeland brings that "something different" or not. They might have the potential to, due to how they'll occasionally add the piano to their poppy and reflective brand of rock/worship or toss out a really thoughtful lyrics in the midst of a long series of praise cliches. But the rap sheet described them as a "progressive rock" band, and maybe that's the one trap I fell into in terms of believing what I read. "Progressive rock" is a genre that features more complex storytelling and musicianship, and usually finds a rock band presenting a series of songs that connects together to express a cohesive theme. Songs often have multiple sections and generous displays of instrumental prowess. This sort of stuff was big in the 70's and 80's, and I still enjoy that approach to rock music, but it isn't at all what Leeland does, nor is the kind of thing I'd remotely expect to get a band signed to a major CCM label. At the moment, Leeland sounds to me like they've taken a bit of Starfield, minus some of the U2 and Jars of Clay references, picked up the influence of the aforementioned keyboard-driven UK bands, and added a few fun, bouncy diversions a la Ben Folds or The Swift. It's not a bad mix of styles at all... and yet I'm left feeling like I've heard this all before, mostly due to the lyrics.

Leeland has gotten a lot of buzz for their live show (I can see a few of these songs being real show-stoppers when allowed to break out of the constraints of a CCM studio recording), and for a young lead singer who's got his heart in the right place in terms of the writing. While 17-year-old Leeland Mooring (who has an appealing, wispy voice that occasionally leaps into an admirable falsetto) can rack up a lot of the stock phrases that get borrowed by a lot of worship leaders these days, he does show a bit of insight here and there that gives this album's sense of desperate need a little gravity. He clearly wants Leeland's music to be an inclusive thing, even talking directly about people who might believe in God if the church had not turned them away so harshly in one song. And that's an admirable attitude even if the execution is sometimes a bit weak. I've been told that I should be impressed by his being selected to co-write a few songs for Michael W. Smith's upcoming record, but then I have to remind people how seriously silly Healing Rain was, and point out that the average MWS lyric isn't hard for your average teenager who is an aspiring songwriter to outdo. (I wouldn't have said that ten years ago, which is kind of sad, huh?) So, no bonus points for having connections. But if it helps MWS out a little bit, then great. He could use it.

Back on the topic of this album, I've found after giving it a fair chance (strangely, I keep popping it into my car's CD player even though I have much better albums to get me through the daily commute) that I can enjoy it on a basic level. The melodies and the blend of instruments are tasty enough on the upbeat songs that many of 'em don't seem like too obvious a grab at an easy radio hit (even though a few of them undoubtedly will be). The slower, more reflective songs don't outnumber the faster ones (which is a mistake a lot of worship albums make - slow things down and people will think it's more emotional than "holy", but things can become indistinguishable fast if not done by skilled hands, so I prefer sticking with the upbeat stuff when it comes to new upstart bands), and I can get into what most of those songs have to say without feeling totally beat over the head by rote, mindless repetition. There's virtually no risk taken here, but there are enough joyous moments to make Sound of Melodies squeeze past my personal "bad music" filter, albeit only barely.

Sound of Melodies
We who were called to be Your people
Struggling sinners and thieves
We're lifted up from the ashes
And out came the song of the redeemed...
A ringing guitar cadence kicks in after a very quiet intro, giving us a theme song for the album that circles around nicely with its rhythm of 6/8. It's a decent balance between a reflective verse about undeserving gathering to sing praise to God, and a simple but guitar-heavy chorus which simply asks if God can hear the sound they're sending up. (Of course God can; it's a bit of a rhetorical question.) I like this one more for the vocal passion and the finesse of the recording - there are little bits and pieces of vocal looping that come sweeping in for a brief second here and there, which adds ambience. It's a fairly simple song, but I do like the idea being presented that "The sound of Your love is what You're hearing." It's a nice contrast to the usual worship songs that brag about how much we love God. Any small pittance that we could offer really pales in comparison to the love God has for us, and any good we do is from God, so they've got their hearts in the right place by expressing that their worship is just a reflection of what God has done in them.

Reaching
And it's for You, it's all for You
We're breaking off our chains to run to You
Would You fill our hearts
Oh, fill our songs...
"Cascading" is a good word to describe the motion of this song. It's one of those upbeat piano rockers where the energy comes in waves of 3, so while it might be tempting to compare it to the ever-popular "Clocks" or "Speed of Sound" by Coldplay, I'd say that's more of an inspiration than something they directly ripped off. The lyrics are simply about man's desperate attempts to break through our self-imposed boundaries and reach out to God - nothing earth-shattering, and I have to wonder why they need to actually state, "This won't be the last song we sing to You" - I mean, they've got nine songs to go and this is just their debut album. But whatever. I like the way that the song swells and slams, and so far Leeland Mooring has been 2 for 2 in the believably zealous vocals department. Drummer Mike Smith also strikes a nice balance between different percussive styles here, which keeps the song from dragging.

Yes You Have
Every star and open sky
Tell of Your glory divine
They shout Your praise...
This might be the first questionable track on the record. It feels a lot like a piano-heavy Chris Tomlin track with its acoustic guitar intro, medium tempo, and maddeningly basic chord progression. Something about the verses, which talk about all of creation singing God's praise, doesn't quite gel with the chorus, which dares to use the schmaltzy line "You've stolen my heart, yes You have" and dares to follow it up with the tired rhyme of "You've wiped away the stains and broke away the chains". The sound of it gets very rich once it gets going, and Jack Mooring's piano part positively glistens during the bridge, but there's too much cutting and pasting from other worship bands' surface-level sentiments for the song to really appeal to me. Of course, it's been earmarked as a future single, and we all know Christian radio's gonna make it a massive hit by way of brute force. The song's got all the telltale signs of a tune that they could mindlessly play over and over with their core audience not minding.

Tears of the Saints
There are schools full of hatred
Even churches have forsaken love and mercy
May we see this generation
In its state of desperation for Your glory...
One of the band's deeper and more reflective tunes shows up here - it's got a slightly mournful tone in its melody and its somber piano playing, as Leeland laments the existence of so many "prodigal sons" who are searching for a spiritual home, but have been turned away by an uncaring church. The emotion here is 100% believable as he sadly proclaims, "This is an emergency." His falsetto rings out nicely during the chorus, where he describes the "saints" crying out to God to bring these people back home despite the wrong we've done to them. I've heard so many evangelical rallying cries in songs like this that talk about "lost souls", but most of the time I get the sense that amassing huge numbers and gaining bragging rights is what is making this sound attractive to listeners. So I like this more humble approach to the song. The band isn't afraid to take their time here, with the song unwinding over a leisurely six minutes - it's undoubtedly a power ballad, but it's done tastefully. This is the kind of thing I'd like to be singing on Sunday mornings, truth be told. The climactic bridge may be a little too close to Coldplay's usual M.O., but in this setting, the influence isn't out of place.

Beautiful Lord
When my sin is all that I can see
Your grace remains the shelter that I seek
And when my weakness is all I can give
Your gentle Spirit gives me strength again...
You can probably guess from the title that this is likely to be a generic "weepy ballad". And you'd be mostly right. It's led off by acoustic guitar and piano, and the intimate setting is a decent change of pace at first, but the lyrics and especially the chorus are more of the usual modern worship fare, softly bludgeoning the listener with more commonplace phrases about how nice and pretty God is. There's a pretty cello that creeps into the background, but the song can't really achieve much beyond simply being "pleasant", and as it begins to build, it rapidly turns into what I call the "Coldplay plod" - a straight-ahead and totally unimaginative 4/4 rhythm with that clean guitar tone ascending into the heavens. It was nice when I first heard it, but here, where it's the umpteenth time a band has tried that trick, it gets old fast. This one probably goes over better in a live setting, because it certainly wants to be an emotional high point, but here, despite the wall of sound, I feel like more should have been done to make it stand out.

Can't Stop
You've risen like the sun
Darkness fades with the dawn
You are the radiant one
And You give me light...
For some reason, the guitar riff and overall pacing of this song really remind me of "When I Search" by Something Like Silas. (Now there's a modern worship band that I will genuinely miss, though I guess they still exist in an altered state.) This one sounds like it wanted to be a fun rocker, but the production kind of sucked about half of its energy out. I find the guitar riff and the chorus to be catchy, but it doesn't quite leap out at me the way it should. The chorus might be part of the reason why I roll my eyes at this one, because saying "I can't stop falling in love with You" is so original. Leeland gives us some great falsetto again here, though - the guy's got a great voice and that might be one of the things that has slowly brought me around to enjoying a lot of these songs despite all of my critical nitpicking.

Lift Your Eyes
You can look at the stars and make no sense of it
You can search your soul and find no light
Until you look into the Savior's eyes, and then you finally realize
The saving sacrifice is love divine...
This one sounds like it's gonna be fun right at the beginning. Acoustic guitar, bass, and what sounds like a little bit of xylophone conspire to create a perky, bouncy little rhythms that jumps to double-time about halfway through, until leading us to a punchy chorus - it's way more pop than rock, but the song's got character all the same. There might be a teeny bit of Switchfoot influence to the guitar playing, though the lyrics play it much straighter than Switchfoot ever would, simply appealing to a person who has looked everywhere else to fulfillment, telling them, "You can lift Your eyes, come on to the cross." Nothing we haven't heard before in terms of the lyrics, but they drizzled a lot of good sounds into this song and got every band member noticeably involved, so I can't complain too loudly.

Hey
Do You see my celebration
For this open invitation to Your arms, to Your arms
It's a beautiful fixation
As I find myself surrounded by Your love, Your love...
A fast, bouncy rhythm of 6/8 is usually guaranteed to put a smile on a listener's face. Especially when it's driven by jaunty guitar and jovial piano playing. This one's where I'm most reminded of The Swift. You can't help but want to clap your hands along with the rhythm here, and shout "Hey!" along with the chorus. Obviously, using "Hey" as a title tips you off that there isn't gonna be a ton of meaning, but at least the happy-go-lucky party is believable. The message is pretty simple, basically saying "I stumbled in the dark for a long time, and then I found God, and hey, I'm pretty happy about it and I'm gonna celebrate." Not much of consequence here, but the melody hangs around in the brain long after the song is over (it was the first song on the record to really get my attention), and the fun piano solo and "La-da-da-da-da" vocals in the bridge only contribute more to the catchiness.

Too Much
Find me in the background looking down
You'll never see my face, I'm looking down...
The electric guitar intro to this loping mid-tempo song clues us in that we're back in more moody territory. Leeland never gets too downcast, but there's definitely more of a soul-searching tone to this song. He's weary and telling God he's seen "too much" and he just needs a "place of sanctuary, a refuge from my ordinary", a little time out. I find this song to be pleasant enough when the CD is spinning; I can bob my head to the beat and I enjoy the melody and the little snippets of strings in the second verse, as well as the way that the keyboards call out as if from distant space during the bridge, but there's not enough staying power for me to really think of it as a standout after the fact. The cymbal-heavy drumming during the bridge, is nice, I guess. A lot of things are "nice" here, but there's nothing amazing.

How Wonderful
Lifting hands in song and dance
Humbled by the glory of the cross
We've been redeemed and reconciled
Caught up in the splendor of it all...
Oh boy. This one's even more guilty of doing the whole "Coldplay plodding" thing, even right from the start. I hear that too-slow-to-be-fun, too-fast-to-be-captivatingly-emotional intro and I just want to tune out for the next five minutes, as I wanted to do with some of the lesser songs that Starfield has put out. The drummer even sounds bored on this one, just kind of ambling through it without the usual flair that he adds to these songs. They try to add some layers to it by overlaying the repeated line "Oh the name of Jesus" on top of whatever else is being sung in the bridge, and again, that might be more interesting in concert, but for all of the pretty, layered stuff going on, the song still feels really monotonous.

Carried to the Table
Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup?
This world has left me lame...
It's not surprising that the record closes on a reflective, acoustic song. That's par for the course for albums like this. It's not a bad song, though. Again, you can tell that Leeland's got things right theologically when he expresses the concept of grace and note that God has brought him to be in fellowship with the divine, letting him be "seated where I don't belong". I actually find them more interesting in this purely acoustic mood than I do when the full band is playing a ballad - the piano and guitar play off of each other delicately and it works well. This one runs close to six minutes, and it comes to a nice, Delirious?-style climax later on, bringing the whole band in for a final, grateful sing-along of, "You carried me, my God, You carried me." For some reason, I can see this one working well as a communion song. As far as worship songs go, we need more like this that really allow us to reflect on our brokenness and the reasons why our need for God is where the real worship springs from, rather than just doing it because the music is fun and trendy.

These guys are nothing if not earnest. I think they have the potential to go places, if they're willing to challenge themselves away from the praise & worship cliches on future albums and keep their focus on the reasons. I'm fine with some fun being had in this setting, but it's a fine line between joyous celebration and just cheapening the name that you claim to be praising, so I think more care should be taken to make sure that the atmosphere doesn't get too superficial. It'll probably take them a few more records to distinguish themselves and become a unique and respected name in the CCM industry, but that's true of many bands on their first album. What I know now is that I'm willing to give them that chance. If this type of music is up your alley, then I can say that it might be worth it for you to give them a chance, too.

ALBUM WORTH:
Sound of Melodies $1.50
Reaching $1.50
Yes You Have $.50
Tears of the Saints $1.50
Beautiful Lord $0
Can't Stop $.50
Lift Your Eyes $1
Hey $1.50
Too Much $.50
How Wonderful $0
Carried to the Table $1.50
TOTAL: $10

Band Members:
Leeland Mooring: Lead vocals, guitar
Jack Mooring: Vocals, keys
Jeremiah Wood: Lead guitar
Jake Holtz: Bass
Mike Smith: Drums

Website: http://www.leelandonline.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying