Anyone ready for a little vague lyrical evangelism wrapped in more or less the same straight-up rock-and-roll that every other "The" band has been throwing at us lately? If you answered "Yes", you'll probably enjoy The Elms' latest album a lot more than I did.

OK, I suppose that isn't an entirely fair description of a band that I do honestly enjoy from time to time. The Elms have proved to be an interesting band to watch since their humble debut, the Meet the Elms EP, in 2000 (which came bundled with this new album as a bonus, by the way). Furthermore, they managed to impress me by putting their all into an incredibly fun opening set for Jars of Clay on last year's fall tour for The Eleventh Hour. These combined elements made me infatuated enough with the Indiana foursome to invest in their new album, Truth, Soul, Rock & Roll, which continues their obsession with British-influenced classic rock, minus a few of the obviously borrowed elements from The Beatles that drew criticism on their first LP, The Big Surprise. Put quite simply, I bought this one to get my hands on a few catchy rock songs, nothing more. $12 for 17 songs is a pretty good deal in my book (5 of them being older material which I'll have to discuss in a separate review).

As much as I appreciate the band's effort to strip it down to the basics here (there are a few strings here and there, plus a trio of female vocalists known as the "TSR&R Voices" who help out from time to time), I have to admit that the elementary approach gets rather tedious once the band drops out of high gear and veers toward more acoustic material. The Big Surprise had enough little quirks and overall musical variety to disguise the fact that Owen Thomas was generally not a brilliant songwriter. There are a few lyrical standouts here, as there were on the last album, plus a song or two that's just for fun, which is a good thing when pulled off correctly, but when the guys slow down and attempt to get serious, Owen takes on a minimal and vague nature that pretty much renders the band's message dead in the water.

Fortunately, there's enough enjoyable material here to make for a fun car ride, and dust off old memories of the innocent early days of rock & roll... well, memories that I would have if I'd been alive for the first go-round anyway. These guys can't be that much older than me (if they're older than me at all), so my guess is that they're channeling equal parts Monkees and Oasis on this one (the latter band being a fitting comparison if for no other reason than the fact that this group also contains a pair of brothers - Owen on vocals and his brother Chris Thomas on drums. Thankfully, the album is mostly free of the ego-tripping that plagues that other band.)

Speaking in Tongues
People got a thing for the dangerous
You'll find it inside the best of us...
Without a doubt, this album's lead track is the coolest track The Elms have ever recorded. Sporting a lot more musical muscle than anything on their last album, Thom Daugherty just rips into this one with a blazing guitar intro sure to light up any arena. The band is soon going full-throttle, with the help of a Hammond Organ and the TSR&R voices (one of whom is the ever-present Nirva Dorsaint, by the way) working up a frenzy behind them. Owen proves that he has something meaningful to say to his fellow Christians here - lest you think this one of those holy-roller numbers about the goings-on at your typical Charismatic church, think again. The title is cleverly used to tell Christians that actions speak louder than words, and all of their talk about Christ is pretty much useless if their actions can't back it up. I love it when they get to the chorus and everyone's belting it out in unison: "Brothers! Brothers! Everybody's speaking in tongues, we gotta speak in love." The verses can be a little puzzling at times, with Owen going off on tangents about seemingly unrelated things like running barefoot in the snow and growing out your hair, but he scores later with lines such as "Talk all day, but it's what you show." And Thom gets a killer guitar solo - the kind that is sadly an endangered species in rock music today - during the bridge. There is one thing that really irritates me at the end of this song - after the organ fades out, there's a random one-second clip of the girls singing "Save Me" as an intro to the next track, which I have to clip off every time I put this song on a mix CD.

You Saved Me
When all my ambition became my religion
Still I knew You were around...
Though the tempo drops a bit here, the aggression level still remains somewhat high, despite the song getting off to a slow start. This seems to be an autobiographical song of sorts, not so much about salvation (as you might expect), but instead about a period of healing that took place in Owen's life after going through some sort of physical or spiritual injury. I think it has to do with an accident that the guys were in last year, but it's hard to tell just from the lyrics, which have a few interesting lines (such as "The pirates are on top, stealing all the good we've made" - a veiled shot at Internet file sharing, perhaps?), but are not very revealing about the song's subject. One line comes through clearly - "I've got so much left to give, and You gotta release me." It sounds like the prayer of a man who's been in the hospital for a while and is dying to get back out into the world so he can do the work God has called him to do. The mid-tempo approach has to grow on you, but Thom's guitar work keeps it amped up a good deal, so it's still one of the band's stronger numbers.

All the While Having Fun!
Everyone's got the nerve, but no one will serve...
A solid drum beat interrupts the lingering organ note that trails on from the last track, and once again the band dives headline into a classic rock number - this time, with more of a focus on well, having fun. While the chorus seems to have an obvious message to it ("Not in rock and roll did I find my soul!"), there isn't much depth to be uncovered in the verses, which contain about four lines of lyrics total. This is basically a toe-tapping, guitar-slinging good time for all, and despite any grievances I might have about its lyrical brevity, I can't help but fall in love with yet another sweet guitar break, a chorus that rattles around the brain for days, and Owen's tongue-in-cheek rock star attitude that shines through in his vocal performance.

Burn and Shine
One soul in a year ain't all that bad
When it's the only chance you ever had...
The album's latest single picks up with a ringing guitar intro - so far the album has had a fantastic flow from one song to the next - but overall this song is more of a medium-paced, Britpop sing-along. Something about the song gives me the feeling that it's extremely important to the band, but again, it's tough to tell exactly what's being said from the lyrics. The general impression I get is that this is a sort of "mission statement" for the band - "Yeah, we're gonna burn, burn, burn/And we're gonna shine, shine, shine/Even if it wears out out/Or takes us out past these county lines." It's a nice proclamation of their purpose as a band - to spread the Gospel. It just gets bogged down a little later on by lines like "Get what matters on your mind" that seem more concerned with telling us what to do rather than how to do it.

The First Day
And we compete in word in deed
You'd think we'd learn by now, it's not what people need
But that's our style...
The first true ballad on the album starts off with an acoustic intro that's dangerously similar to "You Saved Me" - in fact, a god deal of the songs on this record have intros that are difficult to distinguish from one another. It's not a bad tune - I like the slightly country-inspired guitar parts that pop up here and there, as well as Owen's occasional slip into falsetto, but overall, the song is an unspecific ode to the ability to start life over. There's a hint at the things being left behind, the "Tragedies and enemies, the debts you'll never pay", but there's really no explanation - her or anywhere on the album - of how those debts are paid.

You Got No Room to Talk!
Runnin' got me nothing, I know truth is strong
Somebody put their money in a simple song...
From out of nowhere, another fun electric guitar intro leads into a sort of Motown-inspired up tempo number - still not too different from The Elms' usual style, but definitely an amusing song. Though it doesn't keep at all with the apparent theme of the album, it's kind of fun to hear The Elms' take on a tried-and-true theme -the girl that did you wrong. This one gets a little repetitive - again, due to its lack of specificity about exactly what she did to beat him down and treat him wrong, but it's still a blast of a song, and especially ironic when the female vocals join in to help Owen tell her off. (You gotta love his flair for adding exclamation marks to his song titles, too.)

Come to Me
Don't I think about you daytime, when the stars are gone
I think about you evenings, when I'm singing my songs...
The album's midpoint is marked by a cute little acapella interlude, where the "TSR&R Voices" are harmonizing and snapping their fingers (frustratingly, it's tacked onto the end of track 6), leading into a strong acoustic intro for song #2 about a girl. At least, I think it's about a girl. The lyrics sure don't seem to work when presuming the song might be about God, so that's the only conclusion I'm left with. The beginning of the song makes good use of empty space, with Thom's guitar and Chris's drums laying down a foundation for the rest of the song to build on. Owen sounds like a very lonely man here, longing for his baby to come back to him, being patient even though he suspects she might be purposefully keeping him waiting on his front porch, as if to further build his anticipation. It's a cute song, with some endearing falsetto that's perfect for making the girlies scream in concert (again, I think it's more of a tongue-in-cheek thing here), and a powerful response from the band shifting back into high gear after the first chorus. If you enjoyed "The Buzzing Won't Stop!" on the first album, then you'll probably love this one, too.

Let Love In
I could give you all the moments that your sunlight chased away my clouds
But talking will be the death of me, I won't speak, just send my love your way...
Here is the turning point where the band returns to a restrained style that is much more Britpop than rock & roll, with the primary focus being on a basic acoustic guitar strum, a steady 4/4 beat, and rather generic lyrics about wanting to help a person find the cure for their loneliness. I'm sure that the band had an individual or a group of people in mind that they hoped to reach out to when they recorded these songs, but I don't see how it helps someone looking for love very much to tell them, "Let love go in all you know, and let love in." How do I do that??? It's about as helpful as watching someone else playing a video game and advising them, "Don't die!" Which, in case you're one of those annoying people and you haven't figured it out, is not very helpful.

Go Toward the Glow
It's enough to make a man frown, it's enough that You give us proof...
I'm not sure if the band is going for a Travis sort of vibe with this light, acoustic-driven number, but I have to admit that they're not nearly as exciting in this mode as they are doing full-blast rock & roll. Delicate songs generally require lyrics that demand attention - instead, Owen seems to be trying to make me want to tune the album out at this point, by cramming as many lyrical clichés as possible into one song. Remember the lame chorus of "You're Glowing"? Well, at least that song's sweet, sentimental musical backdrop made it somewhat endearing to me. Here, there's not as much for me to grab on to with lyrics like "I would be what I should be to be your baby." There's a reason that inane lyrics like these were left in rock & roll's past - there's some element of that simplicity that doesn't need to be revived. The only remotely interesting lyrics here in the analogy, "Like a moth going 'round the sky, don't we need to find our sight/And so we go toward the glow that keeps us warm through bitter nights." Um, excuse me, isn't that how moths get killed? Dumbest thing I've heard since Amy Grant tried to turn the Titanic back around.

Through the Night
Drove all the way to drop a circus in your face
If that's what it takes, I'll do it every day now...
Now we're back to the relationship topic - at least with this song, we start to get a glimpse of why the individual they're addressing and (from what I can infer) imploring to investigate Christianity is feeling so down and out. He's bummed because he can't get a girl. This mild rocker is basically an attempt on Owen's part to cheer the guy up. For the most part, it's corny, though there are a few lines that I suppose would make me smile, because after all, I've been there and I've had friends doing dumb, cheesy things to try and cheer me up. Still I don't think I would've reacted too kindly if they had expected obvious statements like "Yeah, the day will come after the darkness" to lighten my mood.

Happiness
We're so in love with fighting
That we're blocking out the lighting of the sun...
This tune starts off with some fun "na-na-na"s, but by this point, it's clear that even the upbeat numbers can't hold a candle to those at the beginning of the album. I can't even tell what this song is about - unless I'm thinking too hard and it really just is about the vague idea of happiness. Even with the lyrics staring me right in the face (I had to look them up online since the liner notes only include lyrics to four songs from the first half - a rather lazy bit of production that perplexes me a bit), I can't bring out much of anything specific that inspires or challenges me. At least when The Big Surprise ran out of full-throttle rockers near the end, the lyrics still held my attention.

Smile at Life Again
I've made promises before
But no mother and no friend could love you more...
The album closes with another acoustic number - drums and other elements work their way in later, but this is mostly a folksy, finger-picked number, slower paced than "Go Toward the Glow". It's the only song on the album that Owen didn't write by himself, though I can't see how Thom Daugherty is contributing much of anything to the song other than his instrumental skills. Sure, they address heartbreak and being at the end of your rope in the darker days of your life, but should the final word on that be that we just need to "smile at life again"? If no person can love you perfectly, then who can? It's left completely up to the listener here to discern any connection to matters of faith. If this were a mainstream band, I could accept that at face value, but it's frustrating that a band who wasn't afraid to specifically mention their Creator and Savior on the last album is suddenly taking a step back and just offering warm fuzzies that dissolve upon contact.

I'll make it clear - I'm not one who suspects a band of not being genuine Christians just because they don't have a high Jesus-per-minute factor in their lyrics. Some of the most spiritually poignant albums I've heard don't even mention Jesus by name, but Christian themes of forgiveness and redemption are clearly there for those who have ears to hear. Having those same ears seems to do little when listening to The Elms... it almost feels like someone was watching over them in the studio, making sure that they had a message, and yet at the same time that they didn't sacrifice their crossover appeal. It would have been much better if The Elms had just recorded a flat-out, fun album about rock & roll music and girls. I don't expect every album made by Christians to sum up the four spiritual laws - hey, we Christians need music to just have fun and rock out to, or just chill out to, just like everyone else does. But if you're going to try and offer some hope to the hurting, at least be specific about where it comes from. If deep poetry ain't your gift (sorry, Owen, but it ain't), then you might as well just be straightforward instead of thinking that veiling the hope that you have somehow makes you poetic by default.

I hate to be so hard on these guys, because they are definitely a blast to see in a live setting, and I'm sure their upcoming tour will be a sweet slab of rock & roll that will bridge the generation gap and help contribute to world peace, yada yada yada. (Sorry, I'm bitter because I just found out that this is yet another tour that won't make it to the greater Los Angeles area. Seems to be a new trend in Christian music.) But I kinda wish they'd decide that they're a for-fun band, or decide that they're an evangelical band, or find a way to pull off both at once without compromising either, instead of giving us half-handed attempts like roughly half of this album turns out to be. However, having said that, it's probably worth picking up if you like retro rock by bands whose names start with "The", and you can find this one cheap. But if that's the case, I'd recommend starting with The Big Surprise instead.

ALBUM WORTH:
Speaking in Tongues $2
You Saved Me $1
All the While Having Fun! $1.50
Burn and Shine $1
The First Day $.50
You Got No Room to Talk! $1.50
Come to Me $2
Let Love In $.50
Go Toward the Glow $0
Through the Night $.50
Happiness $.50
Smile at Life Again $.50
TOTAL: $11.50

Band Members:
Owen Thomas: Lead vocals, guitar
Chris Thomas: Drums, percussion, vocals
Thom Daugherty: Lead guitar, vocals
Keith Miller: Bass, vocals

Website: http://www.theelms.net

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving