Author's Note: The Epinions database lists this product as being a cassette, and being a "Various Artists" album, but last time I checked, it was all done by one artist and my copy of the album was a CD.

Ready to take a trip down Memory Lane with me?

No? Well, too bad. Because I'm feeling nostalgic today, and darn it, I have to get around to reviewing some of my old CD's at some point. Just sit tight, it'll be fun.

Out of the Grey is one of the principal groups that I think I can credit with helping to formulate my musical tastes as a teenager. Back then, I didn't know up from down in the realm of popular music, since I had not sought out much exposure to it on my own, fearing that I wouldn't relate, or, in the case of "secular" music, I'd stumble across a lot of inappropriate lyrics that I wouldn't feel right singing along to. It was my youth pastor who got me into the more "pop" and less "praise & worship" side of Christian music during my late teens - I was reluctant to try at first, but if she was going to loan me some of her favorite tapes, I figured the least I could do was give them a try. One of those tapes was the debut album by Out of the Grey, an introspective husband and wife duo that has been a staple of my music diet ever since.

Coming on to the scene in 1991 (though I didn't hear this album until three years later, by which point they already had two more records out), Out of the Grey offered something to Christian music fans that I don't think was the norm at the time. They wrote from a more personal place, drawing on experiences from their relationship with one another (and later their children; I don't think they had any at this point), and less from the regurgitated Bible verses and pithy catch phrases that drove a lot of Christian artists to the top of the charts in the 80's. Amy Grant had done this to some extent, and so had Steven Curtis Chapman from time to time, but the interwoven themes of romance and patience were what really captivated me with Out of the Grey. The romance side grabbed me because I was a hopeless romantic at age 16, and I welcomed any music that I thought could be an ally in winning over that special girl while at the same time not insulting my intelligence with overly gloppy sentiment. The patience side challenged me at that age. It still does, honestly, and it was clearly a struggle for this couple when they were writing these songs. There was a vulnerability there that I didn't necessarily want to hear at the time, but you know, it was a good word that felt like it was coming from a close friend instead of an adult who was talking down to me.

Let's not forget the music, though, because that's the biggest part of Out of the Grey's influence on my personal tastes. Featuring the holy triumvirate of Christine Dente on lead vocals and piano (and what a shimmering voice she has!), Scott Dente on acoustic guitar and backing vocals (whose playing technique is an interesting balance of nimble-fingered picking and hammer-on-happy percussive strumming), and pop wizard Charlie Peacock in the producer's chair, providing just the right amount of studio effects to make this an in-your-face pop gem without sacrificing the organic feel of the songs. I don't know if Charlie had quite achieved veteran status in Christian music at this point, but this album certainly helped him on his way - it's chock full of those neat little one-off moments that can add so much quirky color to a song. Every song on this album stands out, and a good deal of them are an innovative approach to a radio-friendly pop sound. I didn't realize at the time what a rarity that was amid so many run-of-the-mill adult contemporary vocalists who sang about nothing, and so many singer-songwriters who could tell us how they felt but not give us an interesting musical backdrop to save their lives. It may be nostalgia talking, but I loved every song on this album - it may well be the most perfect pop album in my collection. Given that it's the oldest album in my CD collection not by U2, and that I don't think Christian music really hit its creative stride until about 1995, that's really saying a lot. I'm not compelled to listen to early 90's stuff very often, but with this album, it's like I'm discovering the songs anew whenever I pull it out.

Wishes
We do so much dancing around each other
Won't you reach out and clue me in...
A rather busy, syncopated rhythm of piano and drums gets going immediately - a perfect backdrop for what is perhaps OOTG's most beloved song, an unwritten letter from Christine to Scott in the days when they were college students struggling to admit to each other that they were in love. The sentiments seem like they'd be common to any teenage girl at first - "I do so much thinking about you, but keep to myself - what am I waiting for?" In between all of the wishing that he would make a move, there's a deeper desire present, because she knows that he is not a Christian yet: "Tell me that when this life is over, I will see you there, on the other side of Heaven's door." She's trying to put a wish for his eternal security ahead of her romantic wishes, and the sentiment comes across very sweetly and unselfishly. The interplay between Scott and Christine is great, especially during the instrumental break which gives plenty of breathing room to her piano and his acoustic guitar, and the vocal vamp at the end of the song, where the two of them are echoing different snippets of the lyrics as the song fades out. It's hard for pop songs to be both upbeat and gorgeous at the same time, but this one succeeds on all counts.

Write My Life
I struggle every day
To finish this my own way
Then try to scribble out
The pain of my mistakes...
The second song takes more of a relaxed pace, though it keeps a strong backbeat thanks to the drums. Christine's melody is a bit more angular here, as she slips into a falsetto range that seems slightly uncomfortable for her (I notice this only know, but I've always been captivated by the song). Once again making her words very easy for my teenage self to relate to, Christine describes herself as the writer of her own life story, and she's trying to learn the lesson of letting go and allowing God to write it. (The simple metaphor grabbed me so much at that age because I used to write a lot of short stories that kind of mirrored things that I wished would happen to me in real life.) The song's only real stumbling point is in the chorus, when the language gets a little too cliché and straightforward ("I'm watching you write my life, Lord, and learning how to trust"), but this is quickly redeemed by a vocal breakdown in which Christine lets out this echoing waterfall of "ah-ah-ah"s that makes my hair stand on end to this day.

Remember This
When you know beyond any doubt
This is true love you've found
Don't forget it when the passion fades...
I always thought that the electric guitar and organ intro seemed a little too dark in comparison to the rest of this song, but then again, I'm all for unorthodox intros to otherwise laid-back ballads. Out of the Grey fares quite well on their first ballad, allowing Christine to establish a firm difference between fleeting feelings and real love with wonderful metaphors - "When you sing, the sound disappears as it moves through the air, but the music still rings in your ears. When you laugh, the feelings release and they soon fade away, but you know that the laughter was real." The song goes on to describe the giddy sensation of falling in love - something that I could only imagine and desperately longed for at that time in my life - and reminds us that while the emotional high doesn't last forever, God's love does and that provides a deeper anchor for that sort of a relationship. At the time, I still had the naïve notion that my first kiss would be the beginning of my happily ever after, and nothing else would matter after that point, so this was kind of a message I didn't want to hear. But I needed it, and even today as I look forward to my wedding, the song holds extreme significance for me. It's beautifully sung by Christine, with echoes by Scott in all of the right places, and I like how the song hints at evolving into a light jam session as it fades out.

The Dance
There were times when I wanted to hold you
And times when I wouldn't be held
I was waiting, I was watching, I was wondering
Maybe we should call this whole thing off...
Scott and Christine once remarked in an interview (I think this was during a somewhat less creative era for them in the mid-90's) that in the beginning, they were being different for the sake of being different. But they also acknowledged that most of their fans liked their first record the best. Quite frankly, I liked the attempts to stand out, even when they resulted in weird songs like this one that were perhaps a little over saturated with quirkiness. Set to an appropriately danceable drum groove, Christine describes some of her first interactions with Scott in a very conversational tone. At times she's confrontational, telling his to turn the TV off while he's doing homework and so forth, and at times she's shy or just playing hard to get. She realizes that their relationship is a rather confusing dance which trips them up quite a bit, but there's a certain grace in learning the steps with each other. Some weird synthesized noises and chipmunk-like background vocals add an air of absurdity toward the middle of the song - Charlie Peacock must have been having a lot of fun in the studio that day. One little quirk that I always loved is the bridge, where Scott sings solo, and his voice suddenly pans from the left speaker to the right. The sea of effects and voices floating about kind of makes the song feel like it's spinning around, which is appropriate, but I can see how someone approaching this song for the first time a decade and a half later might find to be a bit of a dated relic. Oh well, I still love it.

He Is Not Silent
The people said, this desert never ends
We have no bread, our throats are dry
Our heads are heavy, and our feet need rest
Has He left us here to die?
This is the first song on the record that is more directly spiritual and not as specific to Christine - it's more of an imaginary vision of people being lost in the desert, wondering where God is and why He won't rescue them. You can feel the tension in the constant guitar strumming and the galloping drums during the chorus, which Christine leads up to with the chilling revelation, "We take our daily bread, and after we've been fed, we take our hearts and turn away". It's an unflinching look at the way we approach God - we have no qualms praying for basic provision, but don't want to listen closely enough to really get to know His heart. Christine and Scott handle the subject without any sugar-coating here, right down to the cold ending where she is left to sing the last line acapella, much like Jars of Clay would do years later with the similarly tense "Fade to Grey".

Better Way to Fall
They drove each other crazy
On their way to the top
And they reached the peak so quickly
They didn't see the drop
And they couldn't stop...
A catchy drum beat leads off the second half of the album (remember, this was back when I had tapes with "sides", so I always thought of albums in terms of two partitions). This song, which deals with the issue of pride and the eventual stumbling which comes after it, provides us with some of the best examples of Christine's clever wordplay - "He put so much stock in the market, his basket crushed down broke, so he took a train to get away from it all, but some bridges just don't hold." I love how the drums "tumble" around Christine in a sort of military fashion when she sings "There's got to be a better way to fall". The song turns more personal near the end when she describes this pride in terms of their marriage and a fear of commitment and sacrifice that can cause them to scar each other: "I walked with you to the altar, said I'd sacrifice myself, but I lost my strength in the ring and took you with me when I fell". The song finishes up with a sweet little solo by Scott that gets tacked on during the fade-out.

Time Will Tell
I never measure up to my own expectations
If I can't do it all, must be something wrong
I guess I wrestle with an image I just can't project
By trying not to fail, I'm getting nowhere fast
One of the more straightforward numbers is next - one that I can remember Christian radio playing because it didn't throw them too many curveballs. The duo is still delightfully upbeat here and the melody is still a lilting and catchy one. Christine is singing in more basic turns about her constant driving need to do absolutely everything, and to do it all right, and once again there's a central lesson of letting go, allowing God to take care of the areas where we fall short, and just reminding ourselves to rest. There's a sitar solo, or some sort of Eastern instrument, which adds a lot of flavor to the bridge, and the drums have a light, ticking quality to them at times, which is kind of a prerequisite for any song about time, but it's well-executed nonetheless.

Perfect Circle
I run in circles searching
For a good place to start
I run into a dead end again
Swallowed up by the dark...
The steady, thumping rhythm to this song sounds like some sort of hand percussion that was looped and played back again and again, giving the song a trancelike, almost tribal feeling. Listening to this hidden gem is like watching a gorgeous sunset - it just sticks in my head like no other. Christine's breathy voice comes from the perspective of a non-believer in this song - perhaps Scott or someone else whose point of view she was attempting to grasp, a person who didn't know what this Christian thing was all about, but who saw an irresistible, unexplainable peace within Christine and who is inquiring what it's like to have it. The questions are almost whispered, and the melody loops around in a predictable but beautiful fashion, which fits Christine's eventual description that "This love is like a perfect circle, having no end, no broken lines". The feeling of being almost to that point of belief, having almost broken through the surrounding haze, comes through loud and clear in this artful, compelling description of what it's like for someone to begin to have faith in something that they previously could not.

The Only Moment
Was wanting my heart to be free like this summer breeze
Singing through your fingers on the guitar strings...
A funky little bass riff starts off the album's last upbeat song. Once again, due to the theme of patience, it was a song that I kind of overlooked for a while when I was first listening to the album, but I've come to see the beauty in it, thanks once again to Christine's wordplay and the way that the duo constructs a melody. She describes a simple night spent alone with Scott, and once again there's that notion of wanting to capture a single moment and hold onto it forever, instead of "looking back, wondering where the time we spent yet" and "looking ahead to worry about time that hasn't been yet". It's a great song about living in the now, and while I don't find the chorus to be as compelling as the surrounding songs (the background vocals are a bit cheesy, now that I think about it), it's still a strong entry that provides a fun break in between two of the album's more contemplative moments.

The Deep
I am a wave upon the sea
The wind catches me and throws me
To a rocky beach, dashing me to pieces
I am scattered on the sand, then gathered back again...
The last song finds Christine losing herself in pure metaphor, with her voice floating on a sea of gentle, mellow electric guitar, which ebbs and swells like the breaking of waves on a shore. Christine is one of those waves, constantly being broken apart and dragged back into the ocean, only to be reformed and repeat the process. She uses this as a metaphor for spiritual depth, calling out to "the people who are stranded on the land". Oddly enough, her voice is isolated in the right speaker for the entire song - not sure what the significance of that is. But it's a lovely way to end a superb album - "Come follow me, be swallowed by the deep". It's one more classic to add to a pile of solid and memorable songs. The only thing missing here is a part that would later get added in some of OOTG's concerts - a delectable guitar solo from Scott that would build on the basic chords until it developed into a rather intense jam session. Hard to imagine amidst the gentle sounds here, but I saw them do this one on their Gravity tour, and let me tell you, it was sweet with about ten E's.

Out of the Grey went on from here to become a bright spot on Christian radio with their slightly more sophisticated pop style, and they were quite productive in the early-to-mid 90's, turning out the follow-up albums The Shape of Grace (1992), Diamond Days (1994), and Gravity (1995), all of which had top-notch songwriting, but musicianship that veered a little more toward s "safe" sound that wasn't as innovative as their first album was. They returned strong with a more alternative, rocky texture on (see inside) (1997) and a new-millennium approach to their quirky, textured pop with new "it" producer Monroe Jones on the much-anticipated 6.1, which came out in 2001 and is their most recent album (not counting Christine's solo venture, Becoming). All of those albums are worthwhile, but I still feel that the Dentes' talents have been largely under-utilized (especially Scott's guitar, which seems to get buried in the pop production, though he got his moment to shine on the Phil Keaggy/Wes King collaboration Invention in 1996). This is where their more personal and quirky side shines through the best, in my opinion, and it's the ideal place for potential new fans to start.

This concludes my little trip down Memory Lane. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, then consider this your warning - I'm planning on coming back for a stroll a little more often now that I'm starting to get into these old albums again.

ALBUM WORTH:
Wishes $2
Write My Life $1.50
Remember This $2
The Dance $1.50
He Is Not Silent $2
Better Way to Fall $1.50
Time Will Tell $1.50
Perfect Circle $2
The Only Moment $1
The Deep $2
TOTAL: $17

Group Members:
Christine Dente - Lead vocals, piano
Scott Dente, Guitars, backing vocals

Website: http://www.outofthegrey.com (Currently redirects to Christine Dente's solo site, though to my knowledge, Out of the Grey still exists as an artistic entity)

Great Music to Play While: Trying to clear up your muggy mid-July state of mind.

Recommended: Yes