Anybody out there miss Burlap to Cashmere? I know there have to be some of you reading this. The ragtag bunch of New Yorkers hit CCM in 1998 with an irresistible acoustic rock album, rich with Greek and Latin influences. And sadly, due to the financial meltdown of their label and the departure of their lead singer, the band was pretty much left dead in the water while working on a second album that has yet to see the light of day.

But there's a bright side to this all-too-common story. That former lead singer, Steven Delopolous, has a solo album out that might just tide you over until the next Burlap release. Heck, you might even like this guy on his own better than Burlap. But I guess that depends on what you value more. If the Latin bent and lightning-fast guitar wizardry was your thing, you might miss those ingredients, though Steven is no slouch on the old acoustic. If the oblique, intriguing poetry hooked you in, you'll find an even deeper well here. If it's straightforward, Bible-paraphrasing, Gospel-preaching lyrics of "Basic Instructions" floated your boat, then I hate to say that your boat's gonna get a little rocky. See, Steven's graduated to a more subtle means of integrating his faith with his art. And as much as I thought that old Burlap hit was a blast, I have to admit that I found a lot more in songs like "Chop Chop" and "Skin Is Burning" to sink my teeth into.

Released on eb + flo Records, a new label founded by producer Monroe Jones (who is shaping up to be the Charlie Peacock of the new millennium, minus the solo recording career), Me Died Blue is just about as challenging as its grammatically-challenged title would lead you to believe. This is an album about how faith intersects with the life of an everyday man, how God is found in the comedy and tragedy and scenery around him, and how he still can't resist getting into a little mischief on the side. The ethnically heavy influences of Burlap to Cashmere are scaled back a bit here, allowing some of Steven to channel some of his favorite folk icons instead (think everybody who ever picked up an acoustic guitar in the 70's and you'll get the idea), though there are still a few tracks where the Greek influence is loud and proud. There are even odd instruments and electronic elements bubbling under the surface here and there. It's just enough to give Steven's music a distinctive tint while allowing him to participate in a time-honored tradition.

Does that sound like a musical concoction to die for? Then let's move on, and all die blue.

Another Day
Organized communities, well, we call ourselves societies
But social is the last we seize when dignity has flown away...
The album begins with a subtle wash of keyboards, and a deft finger-picking style best described as "rambling". This song is folk storytelling at its finest, and Steven's weathered voice pulls off the "everyman" persona perfectly as he describes a world of people in turmoil who go about their day-to-day life pretending nothing's wrong. He even makes himself an anti-hero by admitting that sometimes he's just singing these songs to act like he's wise and make a buck. But he still longs to be an example of hope to the world around him when he sings near the end of the song, "Goodbye my friends, today I'm dead/To resurrect and change the world." Some light drums come in later, but the song gets most of its momentum from the colorful guitar picking. I think this song is the album's first single, and savvy Christian radio stations would be playing this single if they cared at all to expand their listeners' horizons. Sadly, I don't think the Burlap connection is enough to get Steven noticed these days.

Jungle Trail
Now time's tickin' like a melancholy friend
Ticks the beginning and the middle and the end...
A slower number is up next - very bare-bones at first, but it's great that the acoustic guitar has been given this much breathing room. The song has a very wistful feel to it, with Steven's picking and slapping hearkening back to the simpler days when music wasn't complicated. He seems to be telling a story of redemption from the point of view of a caveman or something - it's not very clear, but it's a genuine and heartfelt dedication to a God who gave him "A fire burning inside me/Makes the lame walk and the blind to see". Probably one of the more blatantly "Christian" songs on the record - Steven likes to keep it parabolic for the most part. The only weird thing about this song is the strings which break in here and there, temporarily speeding up the tempo and making the song feel like some sort of a 70's pop thing. I've gotten used to it, but it sounded kinda cheesy at first.

12 West Front Street
Sent my conversations and my visions to the local queen
She lived on B street, another local with the foreign dream...
This one's definitely a ringer for a Burlap song. A quick little acoustic riff comes trickling down as Steven slowly sings the first verse of the song, and then the picking turns to strumming and everything takes of running. Basically this is a song about nightlife in the city, getting into trouble, trying to find oneself in a busy East Coast town. Few artists can get away with a song whose chorus is nothing but the syllable "Oh" repeated over and over. Steven pulls it off with just the right mix of class and grit.

Me Died Blue
When the hot sun hurts me, I have to leave
This world of me, you know I grieve...
Steven has mentioned that he was going for a bit of a Cat Stevens effect on this jerky little number... and I suppose I'm too young to really know what he's talking about. But what I'm hearing here is one of the best concoctions of folk, rock, and traditional Greek music this side of "Digee Dime". It's got just as much lyrical intrigue as Burlap's best stuff, and it bumps along on a quirky 5/4 beat that's almost too quick to accurately count. Add a rousing chorus of "lai lai lai", hit frappe, and you've got a song that'll keep eclectic music lovers coming back for repeated listens. Love the sudden ending.

Here I Go Again
Take my thunder, take my rain
Never ever let me dance below the grave...
Steven casts his bad for the position Derek Webb recently vacated on this song - he pulls off the "messed up over a girl" thing with a genuine sense of poetry and melody. He certainly wasted no time in catching my ear with this song's immediate, delicate opening chord (probably a major seventh - those always snag my attention), and he doesn't disappoint from there. There are times during this mellow, coffeehouse-type number when his voice just seems to leap out of the speakers - it borders on being obtrusive if you're not used to his style. The guys sounds like he's trembling at times when he's singing, but it definitely conveys a genuine emotion.

Daisies and Sandalwood
Silence in the cage, the structure persuades me
But I look around to the orange bright sun
And hold up my breath, and think of the damage that's bound to behave...
In another songwriter's hands, this might've been the obligatory September 11th song, but Steven knows how to look beyond the typical and make something memorable. Some strange electronic noises rumble in the background here while another one of those "rambling" guitar patterns takes over, and Steven lays down an oblique poem that's going to take me many moons to figure out. I can detect a heart for the people mourning their loss as he encourages them to "Map out your futures and freeze dry your food, and look for your reflection on a dime", and I can detect a veiled political statement in his plea for them to "Look away from the fire, and this campaign of quicksand, this campaign of oil beating out of the land like a drum", but I can't quite piece it all together. And that's the subtle beauty of it. Steven might lose a couple points for repeating himself, since one of Burlap's last songs as a band was the similarly delicate "Daisies and Roses", but both are great songs, so I'll let that one go. It's not everyday a songwriter can squeeze the words "vomit" and "reeking" into a song and still make it beautiful and compelling.

Seasons
One naked man, one naked scheme
Faded into a bad, bad dream
Everybody look, everybody glide
Glide along and wave goodbye...
This song is probably the highlight of the album for me... but it's a subtle highlight. A workman-like guitar strum runs through the whole thing, chewing over the same chords again and again in a blues-like progression, and the song is mostly focused around an extremely catchy chorus. This is one of those songs you'd listen to while riding on a train through the countryside... the dual guitar work gives Scott Denté (guitarist for Out of the Grey - nice job pulling the strings on Monroe's part) a chance to show off his chops alongside Steven, and there's also a banjo plunking around and an cool synthesizer slicing through the mix. I guess I like the song so much because it shows us how capable Steven is of melding together a lot of eclectic influences.

Rocky Boat
Off I go into the night
I sing my tunes, I fake the light
I crack a smile and when I'm cued
I read the lines and spit 'em right...
There were a few Burlap songs like "Scenes" and "Divorce" that had a bit more of a "theatric" element to them, showing us what their live persona was like. If that was your thing, you'll probably enjoy this song - it's Steven's off-kilter attempt at singing a pirate shanty. Seriously, the dude sounds like a drunken sailor at times during this song, but it all fits in with the allegory of being tossed around on a sea of false theology - this song is probably meant to be a reference to a confusing time in his life when he was involved in a pseudo-Christian cult or something like that. It's certainly entertaining, especially when it gets to the "Hey ho, where do you go?" breakdown in the middle. It gets a little maniacal when it speeds up at the end, but that's all part of the fun.

Holy Sunlight
Oh, my kindred sorrow, leave me to be sane
Leave me for salvation, the distant Gospel train...
This song comes in a close second for most musically satisfying piece on the record. It's got a gently swaying rhythm to it, once again driven by the acoustic guitar - another experiment in 5/4 or 10/8 or whatever that gives it sort of a "watery" feel. It's a happy song about drowning. I know that doesn't make sense, but if you take this as an allegory, as you should with pretty much everything Steven's ever written, the joy will make sense. It's also a definite ode to Steven's Greek heritage, especially when the traditional instruments break out in the middle of the song and Steven starts singing about empty wine bottles and stuff... it just makes me want to take a trip down to my local Mediterranean restaurant and order something with hummus on the side.

Mediterranean Waters
The birds are humming their rhymes
And the creeps are planning their crimes
The graffiti walls standing tall
And the church is waiting for God's big sign
Steven throws another curveball here by using jazzy keyboard chords to take us temporarily out of the "folk" arena and into the feel-good land of soulful pop. How well it works is up to the listener, but you have to keep in mind that Steven wrote this song when he was much younger. It's very much a "worldview" song, describing beauty and depravity in the same sentence without batting an eyelash, and observing through it all that "The church is waiting for God's big sign".

Runaway Train
She was looking for a circular event
We were aware of the spiral
And paranoia made us social as cement
We faded in colors and styles...
One last upbeat song appears here... this one almost has the same country influence as "Ancient Man" did on the Burlap album, but there's also an organ and some other elements to provide more of a roots-rock feel, and even another one of those weird synthesizers just to remind us that this is the 2003 version of a tried-and-true style. Lyrically, this song ain't nothing new if you're familiar with Steven's influences, but it's a fun topic for a Christian songwriter to handle... basically it's about meeting a girl and throwing his judgment out the window and getting taken for a ride. He doesn't make any apologies for line like "A cup of tea for the missus, little ma'am, me I'll have me a whiskey", nor is there a big moral to the story at the end of it all... basically he's just reliving his folly. I think it's clear that it was folly from the overall surrounding context, but no way Christian radio is gonna touch this with a 39 1/2 foot pole. If there's one drawback to the song, it's that Steven's "oh-whoa"s can get a bit rough on the ears, but once again, I think the whole "unpolished" sound is what he was going for.

People Come and Go
Knowledge is the season for knowing when and why
Balances and reasons keep me from the fire...
A gentle choir floats in the background of this quiet closing number. By now there have been enough simple acoustic ballads that I guess this one doesn't really hit me as powerfully. Perhaps the title seems like a bit of a "duh" statement, especially when he already mentioned that "we come and then we go" in the song "Seasons", but perhaps this is the final attempt to tie it all together, to remember the people who have affected his life and count his losses as joy due to all he's learned from them. The choral accompaniment makes me think of the ragtag bunch of voices that joined Burlap in their closing song "Mansions", though this tune is much more subdued... anyway, I need to stop making the Burlap comparison. It's hard not to. On its own, this song makes a nice bookend for the record, but it's probably the weakest track to be found here.

One thing I know for sure is that I can't get enough of this album, just as I couldn't get enough of Burlap five years ago. It's a shame that neither my local Christian bookstore nor the major mainstream outlets seem to be carrying this record, because it's one of the smartest and most artistic albums put out by a Christian songwriter in a while. I guess albums like Me Died Blue are appreciated more by those who feel like they've unearthed buried treasure rather than listening to something they know everyone else likes, but in a perfect world, Steven would be rightfully recognized as being one of the best singer/songwriters CCM has to offer. After all, there are two types of musicians in the world... Greek musicians, and musicians who wish they were Greek!

ALBUM WORTH:
Another Day $1.50
Jungle Trail $2
12 West Front Street $1.50
Me Died Blue $2
Here I Go Again $1.50
Daisies and Sandalwood $2
Seasons $2
Rocky Boat $1.50
Holy Sunlight $2
Mediterannean Waters $1
Runaway Train $1
People Come and Go $.50
TOTAL: $18.50

Website: http://www.stevendelopoulos.com

Great Music to Play While: Preparing roast lamb for 30 of your closest family members.


Recommended: Yes