Funny things happen when major label artists go independent. Whether cut loose due to poor sales, or set free due to their own desires for artistic freedom, going the indie route (or signing to small-time labels, in many cases) can often produce unpredictable results. Gone is the need to be an obvious hit machine, and for the fans willing to deal with the inevitable difficulties in tracking down a copy of such an artist's new album and any other possible changes that may have occurred along the way, the sky's the limit in terms of possibilities. It's exceedingly difficult to maintain an audience when making such a move, but some artists may prefer the smaller, sometimes even cult-like audience that they end up cultivating. It's a group of people who seem to get their music, rather than just being one more screaming fan in a massive sold-out stadium.

The funny thing that happened when singer/songwriter Kevin Max went from major label to minor label is that his transformation was quite the opposite. He's had his insanely popular days, as a member of the mega-hit trio dc Talk, and when everyone from that group did the solo thing in 2001, Kevin's entry veered away from the instantly catchy pop/rock concoctions of dc Talk and delved into electronic, Middle Eastern, and classic rock influences, among other things. There was the spoken-word poetry of course. I didn't find it to be nearly as strange as I had been expecting from Kevin, who could be really eccentric when he wanted to. But I loved Stereotype Be for Kevin's insistence on being himself and taking pride in the unique fingerprints that God had given him (even if, OK, his influences were a bit obvious). The Christian music audience didn't get the record, for the most part, and Tait and Toby Mac, with their comparably more accessible rock and rap records, far outsold him, leaving Kevin in the unusual position of being dropped as a solo artist by the label to which he's still under contract as a member of a group on the longest hiatus ever.

It took until 2005 for Kevin to regroup and get a second album out. Now he's on Northern Records, home of seminal underground Christian rock band The Violet Burning, and he's put out a much more straightforward rock record. There are still ballads here, some soulful moments, enough musical diversity to make sure it's not a bland exercise in radio hitmaking. But still, this new release, The Imposter, takes some getting used to, if what you're previously accustomed to is Kevin throwing you a lot of curve balls. The subtle bait-and-switching is still there in Kevin's enigmatic lyrics, but even then, we get some of his most direct songs of love, longing, and pondering his place in God's universe. Part of the reason for this shift is probably due to Kevin's move to Los Angeles and the club performances that have kept his career alive in between records. The guy loves a crowd, even if it's only about 100 people at the Hard Rock Cafe or whatnot. He's a born performer, and I guess it makes sense for him to have some no-nonsense rock songs in his repertoire. (Much of Stereotype Be's material had enough of an outlandishly produced element to it that reproducing it in a stripped down live band setting kind of dulled the effect a bit.) The Imposter, while not totally avoiding the production bells and whistles, adheres to more of a band feel, with a few solo ballads here and there - this is a record that was made to be performed live. Even if I'm not as excited about the sum of the songs as I was with his first record, I can definitely say that the new material should translate to an excellent live set.

Another surprising thing about Kevin's first full-length foray into the mainstream market is how clearly his faith still shines through in these songs. Not that I ever expected Kevin to pretend he wasn't a Christian or anything, but in between the wrestling with difficult relationships on this record, he also wrestles a bit with God and his own mortality, his place in the universe. It's done honestly, but the questions asked never feel too myopic, and the lessons arrived at never feel too bombastic. It's just the right balance of performance and soul-searching, and that gives The Imposter a certain charm. It's only at the end, when Kevin gets this strange obsession with Armageddon, that I start to think this record might start to weird some people out, but given that he probably weirded quite a few Christians out with songs like "The Secret Circle" and "Deconstructing Venus" on his last CD, I guess turnabout is fair play. Part of his inspiration there is none other than Bob Dylan, anyway, and even a lot of folks who haven't been on board with Dylan's quests for faith seem to still respect the guy. Of course Bono's a major influence in that area, too (as well as some of the performance aspects). I'm sure most folks who are into Kevin's music, regardless of their personal beliefs, probably respect his openness in a way that isn't heavy-handed, and of course, they love the ways those thoughts come out in the form of his one-of-a-kind, silky but slippery, glistening vibrato. It fits into the ironic rockers, it fits into the drippy love songs, it's the all-purpose killer singer/songwriter vocal.

Spelling issues aside (the title really should be spelled The Impostor, but I guess Kevin took a cue from Elvis Costello on that one), there's nothing fake about this CD. Aside from some minor issues with the flimsy packaging (just a cardboard foldout with no lyrics), I don't think that this one was a bad purchase by any means.

Confessional Booth
If people would love, then more of us would be alive
Oh my, my oh my
If you were me, you wouldn't sleep at night...
Kevin shows us he means business right from the get-go, with this snarling rocker that strangely functions as an apology. He's trying to let a lover inside his twisted thoughts, but after failing to help her make sense of him, he simply apologizes in the urgently barked out, one-note chorus, "I take back everything I said that ever caused you pain or stress!" There's plenty of scratching and wailing going on with the guitars in the meantime, and even though Kevin breaks for a mellower, keyboard-heavy bridge (cleverly stating - "You know justice is so blind, so help me tip the scales back tonight"), he and the band still bring it home with royal fury. My favorite moment is the return to the chorus after the bridge, when he deadpans the chorus in his flattest voice before bursting into a blood-curdling scream: "I. Take. Back. Every. Thing. I. Said. I. Take. Back. EveryTHIIIIIIIIING!!!!!"

The Imposter
A few years later and I have you hostage
To my ways of isolation, of my selfish knowledge
I didn't understand what love was about
Until you showered me with grace
Yeah, you put me in your place...
The title track is interestingly, more of a dance-pop thing - you can still hear the live band working it, but they're subdued behind the synth pads and euro-inspired feel. Maybe Kevin's using this to indicate the "song and dance" that he knows he's put this girl through time and time again. Here he's admitting that he's been a bit manipulative, and asking for a chance to start over - I think the chorus starts off a bit cheesy, but finishes strong when he declares "I'm giving up the imposter in me". That may be the reason for the more straightforward musical approach on this entire album - he's being less of a chameleon this time. This isn't one of the songs that stood out to me at first, but the way it slickly slides on by has caused me to like it more and more recently, especially since it's one of Kevin's most stellar vocal performances on the disc.

Sanctuary
So hand me the key to your gates of knowledge
Teach me the truth I never learned in college
Lead me through the valley, let me find a place called home...
Speaking of stellar vocal performances... this one knocks it out of the park. It's well written, it has a huge hook and a soaring guitar part, and it's passionately, infectiously fervent in much the same way that U2's "Beautiful Day" is. It's the song that Christian radio always wanted from Kevin Max but never realized it. And it does all of this while sidestepping the cliches you'd expect in a song about longing for one's heavenly home. Kevin sings about taking the "stairway to hell" and living in a town being overrun by the military (very U2, that comment), all while keeping his thoughts centered on that single, elusive word that he throws the full force of his lungs at in the chorus: "Home!" It's a beautiful song, it rocks in a grandiose sort of way, and it's just plain cathartic for the soul.

Your Beautiful Mind
Corporations rise as the working man will fall
We bit the apple, now the apple's eating us
We want our 15 minutes, and then we want it all
And watch our own image bleeding us...
Kevin softens things up here for a ballad that many have compared to Queen. (I probably would too, if I knew anything about Queen beyond "Bohemian Rhapsody"). It's not full of theatrical histrionics or anything - OK, so maybe the strings are a bit melancholy, but they beat most of the canned string arrangements that you'd hear on Christian radio, that's for sure. Kevin's doing a face-to-face with his Maker, pondering the beautiful mind, hands, and eyes of God, and asking how he can be used. He figures he must have some greater purpose, so he can't fathom just living for his own fame, but still he's confused and asks God: "So show me what You want me to be." It's a tender moment set to a beautiful melody that knows how to be majestic without veering too far into sappy territory. I'd definitely say that it runs circles around "Be" from the last album, which is probably the song you could most easily compare it to.

Jumpstart Your Electric Heart!
You are an only child
Yeah, you're spoiled and wild, so infantile
You just need a soul to trip the wire...
This track is going to be an acquired taste for some folks, as dependent on electronic elements as it is, but I've always been a sucker for a good techno-informed rock song. This one churns away with a relentless dance beat as Kevin proceeds to tell a party girl who is all body and no soul that he's figured out her game, and her game is up. "You've got the body, you shock the party in every way", he slyly informs her, "But your teleprompter lines give you away". Man, I love songs that give fake people a hard time! There's a fun little false ending in this one leading to a brief space-aged breakdown, and somehow the cold, robotic feel of the backbeat never gets in the way of the spirited live band that it shares space with. It's actually my favorite track on the record, though I wouldn't expect it to be everybody's.

Platform
Oh my God, can You see through me?
Can Your pierce the darkness?
God, Your charity is the only song that I cannot sing...
Without a doubt, this song is the deepest and most surprising one on the record, and it's set to... are you ready for this... lounge music. Well, some spaced-out variant of it anyway. The thoroughly soft, but somehow hip, tapping and clicking of the drum beat makes you wanna snap your fingers as the keyboards come in like something from 22nd century Las Vegas. And Kevin has the guts to use this music as the backdrop for some real soul-searching. He's asking God why he's been given this position of great influence, yet doesn't have the guts to go through with God's plan for him (the one that he asked God to show him a few tracks ago). "Why'd You choose me when You knew I wasn't tough enough? Why'd You send me when You knew I would run? Why'd You put me in the places that I didn't want? Why'd You call me when You knew I'd hang up?" (Great line, that last one.) These questions sound like a lot of the same ones Moses asked, but Moses probably didn't sound this deceptively chill about it when he asked them.

The Royal Path of Life
So give it all away now, give it up for free
'Cause everything you got is gonna leave you eventually...
Kevin attempts to get the energy level up again with a guitar-heavy song that's basically his take on "stop the world, I wanna get off", but the desperation of being trapped in a mortal body doesn't quite come across in the somewhat relaxed tempo - it seems at odds with the force of the guitars. Especially in the chorus, it seems like the gap in the lyrics takes the wind out of its sails, causing the song to not really sink in. That, and silly lines like "Shake it off for breakfast, shake, shake it off for tea" kind of set the song up for being easily dismissed. Oh well, at least the guitars are fun, and Kevin still wails with the best of 'em during the verses.

The Imposter's Song
We don't like your politicking
Get a new life, get a new love
This is where your soul needs stitching
Get a new job, bang on the drum...
I'll admit that I think it's kind of lame to have "The Imposter" and "The Imposter's Song" on the same album - if they're about the same thing, just call 'em parts I and II or something and be done with it. This just creates confusion. Anyway, Kevin wrote this one with Jason Martin of Starflyer 59, and surprisingly, it's fairly upbeat and not mopey at all. In fact, there's a lot going on, with little sprinkles of piano and synthesizer, a mischievous up-and-down guitar riff that runs through the song, fun shouts of "Yeah! Yeah!" during the chorus, and a little wry commentary from Kevin on how people seem to view him. He sounds a tad jaded, as if he's come to realize that people don't want a message that makes them think - they just want a beat to dance to, and he's not doing his job properly if he tries to challenge them. At the same time, this track seems to be an admission that "you're beautiful without the makeup", so perhaps he's realizing that too much of the stage theatrics can sometimes hinder the message he's trying to convey. I have to take issue with the awkward grammar in the chorus - "Don't switch to give you my love" is amateur songwriting at best. Too bad that the tune is so catchy, but the chorus fails to really connect because of the silly phrasing.

Stay (The Same as Yesterday)
Oh sweet memory, riding motorbikes down to the sea
Didn't feel like reality even when it was happening...
This is the first of two sugary love songs that give the music more of a supporting role while the vocal performance and lyrics are pushed to the forefront of the listener's attention - not an inherently bad thing, but probably a bad idea to put the two together. I don't think that this is a wholly boring song, but the synths and straight-ahead drumbeat don't exactly cry out to be noticed here. It's Kevin's level of detail when describing how he met a particular lover (His ex-wife? His current wife? Someone he dated briefly in between, and it didn't work out?) and spent time with her on a European holiday that keeps the charm level up and the cliché level from becoming overbearing. Basically, this girl forced him to be a little more adventurous, and he liked that about her, but for whatever reason she had to leave, and now he's wishing things could be back to the way they were when the couple first met. I like the song, but it needs a little more oomph to make it truly memorable.

I Need You, the End
The salt has never left my eyes
The honey in your words still seeps inside
I walk the night with ghostly steps
I wander up and down the past again...
This song comes sweeping in which its dramatic strings, straight out of a romance movie from decades gone by, and its classy 3/4 rhythm. Gentle strokes of electric guitar and the gentle tapping of the drums are the main musical anchors behind Kevin's voice - a tune like this is really a showpiece for those golden vocals, and while this one gets really repetitive at nearly seven minutes (it too has a false ending, before a drum roll brings us back in for a few more minutes of vamping), it's an admirable attempt. Again, it's hard to tell whether the song is eulogizing the marriage that didn't work out, or celebrating the one that is working out for him now, but either way, the sentiment that he's hopeless without her is poetically stated - a lot of artists stumble all over themselves when trying to do the "profound elaboration on a cliché" trick. I still prefer the last album's "On and On" to both of the love songs here, but neither of these are bad.

When He Returns
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Here's the Bob Dylan cover, played just as some of Kevin's greatest live covers have been - just his voice and a lone piano. The sudden shift from tender lover to soulful prophet is a tad unsettling, and in general it's just weird to hear Kevin crooning hellfire-and-brimstone lyrics like "Don't you cry, and don't you die, and don't you burn" - part of me burns to know why, other than the overall cool factor of covering one of his musical heroes, he felt the need to include this particular song. It's kind of like my complaint about "Gotta Serve Somebody" (which I was reminded of when it was recently covered by Nichole Nordeman) - great idea for a song, and you gotta respect a guy for telling it like it is regarding his beliefs, but at the same time, tact ain't exactly his strong suit and I can see why some Dylan fans probably didn't take to the sudden conversion all that well. The song is an awkward mixture of pulpit-pounding and poetry - regardless of the points where the lyrics make me cringe, Kevin's performance more than sells every moment of it. I'm longing for something upbeat just because we've been locking in swaying, riff-free 3/4-land for over ten minutes now - well, we'll sort of get to that soon.

Fade to Red (Antigalaxy)
In the gust of the wind on your back
In your gut, in the tracks of your mind
This is how it ends
Everywhere there is hope, there is oblivion...
What better way to follow an apocalyptic ballad with an apocalyptic rocker? Unfortunately, Kevin goes the mid-tempo route, leaving the back half of this album devoid of a really solid, straight-ahead crowd-pleaser. But never mind, there are some interesting musings here about the things that Nostradamus (and Moses!) apparently said about the end of everything, and the world fading to red, and it sounds like a lot of it has to do with man teaching hate to his fellow man and being responsible for the world's annihilation. Creepy stuff. It's filled in by some of the classic "KMax muttering" - you know, the trick where he quietly mumbles some lines that I'm sure are very poetic underneath the music here and there, but so much is going on that it's hard to catch all of what he's saying. This goes on for upwards of six minutes, and while it's got a strong, grandiose melody to it, I'm still feeling like the album kind of spun out of control a bit at the end.

Letting Go
You are a debutante, you like to flaunt it all
Every moment is a casting call
But way deep down you're feeling small...
Much like he did with "You" on the last album, Kevin tucks one song away as a hidden track, which fades in after a long period of silence. I'm not even sure what the purpose was in hiding this one - it's another synth-laden rocker that would have fit into its surroundings well, and again it's a lyric that Kevin uses to challenge his own need to put on a mask in front of people. The lyrics remind me a lot of "Jumpstart Your Electric Heart!", and perhaps he felt that he didn't want two similar songs together, but I think this one's more organic than electronic. Not as much about it really stands out to me... it's a lot of waiting after what's already a long song, just to get to a B-side track that careens to a sudden halt, ending the album. I might have appreciated this one more as a segue in between "Platform" and "The Royal Path of Life", I think.

Wow, I didn't plan on being that critical of the back half of the album. I still think a good diversity of talent is displayed here, even if it's done in flawed songs, and I still think this set will contribute to an excellent live show. Perhaps if he brought back a little more of the experimentation and otherworldly stuff so that tracks like the straight-ahead love songs wouldn't feel as dry and repetitive, that would help in the future. At the same time, Kevin's main strengths will always be his songwriting and vocals, and those little eccentricities of his that can't be quantified, so whether they take the form of blistering rock or euro-dance or bare-bones Gospel or whatever else, I'll always be intrigued to hear the results.

ALBUM WORTH:
Confessional Booth $1.50
The Imposter $1
Sanctuary $2
Your Beautiful Mind $1.50
Jumpstart Your Electric Heart! $2
Platform $2
The Royal Path of Life $.50
The Imposter's Song $.50
Stay (The Same as Yesterday) $1
I Need You, the End $.50
When He Returns $1
Fade to Red (Antigalaxy) $1
Letting Go $.50
TOTAL: $15

Website: http://www.kevinmax.com

Recommended: Yes