You're traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

Alright, so the latest album by contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Shaun Groves isn't that weird. To be truthful, it doesn't sound "weird" at all, at least not on the surface. What Twilight basically boils down to is a collection of songs ranging from rock to soft adult contemporary, designed to encourage and hopefully even challenge the listener. The same could be said for Shaun's debut, Invitation to Eavesdrop, which established Shaun as a more-thoughtful-than-average newcomer who still somehow managed to be right at home on Christian radio. But look under the surface, and there's a different spirit fueling the creative work found on Twilight

This time around, Shaun and his band and producer Monroe Jones made an attempt to sidestep the usual rules of CCM pop. Sensing that he was between a rock and a hard place in terms of recording songs that were at once thoughtful and still considered acceptable to the hard-nosed gatekeepers of CCM, Shaun and the guys chose to take the live band approach to an easygoing pop-rock album, placing all of the instruments in one room and hitting "record" once they thought they had a song down. No overdubs. No outside help other than the occasional presence of strings. (Oh, those pesky strings!) While it amounts to an album that takes some getting used to, in the end, I think the different approach was worth it.

About 11 months ago, though, when the album first released, I was singing a very different tune. I just couldn't get into Twilight, outside of a song or two. I thought that the instruments sounded like mush on the "rock" songs, and that the band pulled too many punches on the softer songs. Worst of all, I thought that the flow of the album was just plain awkward, even more so than the last album, which I graded down slightly for jumping too quickly between its upbeat and mellow songs. Twilight ended up on my "Biggest Disappointments of 2003" list. And now I'm sitting here telling you that I really like it. What's going on here?

It's simple, really. I met Shaun Groves, and now I'm kissing butt.

Kidding! Kidding!

Actually, I realized that my opinion of the CD had a lot to do with my expectations. I had been tantalized by the thought of a revolutionary work of genius that would turn CCM pop on its head after reading a series of articles on christianitytoday.com that documented the "making of" process for this album. Expectations can be a real pain, can't they? Especially when they're expectations that no one can live up to. The truth is, all of my initial complaints - the weird pacing, the strange production, scattered lyrical snippets that didn't sit well with me - those kind of faded into the background once I set aside the album for a few months and went off to listen to other things. Upon listening to it with more of an open mind, I found that I couldn't label a single one of these songs as bad or even average. OK, so there was a trite lyric here (read: a song that dared to be happy), or a seeming musical copout there (like those dreaded strings). But what about the unexpected instrumentation here, or the gripping lyrical passage over there? How did I miss that?

Maybe it was I who had entered the Twilight Zone. Because this was a genuinely good album. Not perfect, not groundbreaking (Shaun never claimed that he intended for it to be), but wholesome and enjoyable without falling prey to the notion that wholesome and enjoyable Christian music must always talk about predictable or happy things that your average soccer mom might want to hear about. If you're going to work within the pop music idiom, then I think that's a good place to be.

See You
Looking up from my hotel window
There in the moon's glow, I find Your eyes
Watching over me through clouds of silver
Stretched like fingers over midnight skies...
It's interesting that Shaun chose to lead the record off with one of his simpler lyrics, and at the same time with a crunchier, more rock-oriented song. The "live band" feel is apparent right away as the time is counted off - "1, 2, 3..." and then BAM! - the song takes off running, not in a heavy, nu-metal crunch sort of way or anything, but rather in more of a muddy but fun-loving old-school rock sort of way. Shaun's lyrics here examine nature as a revelation of who God is, which is well-worn ground for contemporary Christian singers, but some of the word pictures he uses breathe new life into the familiar approach, particularly the bit about the land looking like a patchwork quilt when viewed from a plane. The song is a plea for God to continue offering him these moments of clarity, to break through the "demons and daily grinds" and to not let him forget who God is. Shaun has a slightly rugged voice that fits well into this musical backdrop - the tune may not be as edgy as "Satellite" from his last album, but it's still a strong rock single.

Blank Page
How I love self-centered sketches
Painting my ways to the edges
But I think what I like best is
How it looks so much like me...
The pacing and instrumentation of this song seemed awkward, almost laughable to me at first. I was certain that it was an early indication that Shaun was falling on his face with this record. Cymbal-heavy drums bang along at a medium pace while the piano leads the way for an unorthodox but spirited pop/rock tune, and the electric guitar just kind of swoops/slides along in a few places rather than taking the lead. Did I mention that this one has become one of my favorite songs on the record by now? You might call it a more upbeat take on Shaun's first hit "Welcome Home" (though it's hardly a "fast" song), since it reuses the idea of Shaun's do-it-yourself nature leading to complete disaster. Instead of an interior decorator, he's recast himself as a writer and as a painter, someone who struggles with the desire to take the pen or brush out of God's hand and try to do it better. There's even a weird chord progression during the bridge that doesn't sound like it works at first, but that ends up sounding pretty cool after a few listens. Little touches like that, and the way Shaun refuses to end the song on a resolved chord, are some of the first hints that Shaun and Monroe did a good job of examining the minute details of pop's unwritten rules, and throwing out the ones that they couldn't see a particular reason for keeping.

Twilight
Good I love but evil's done
Good intentions come undone
Good to know I know the One
Who saves me from myself...
Talk about throwing out the rules... this song's gonna throw you for a bit of a loop if you're expecting the record's reflective title track to follow in the fashion of epic ballads gone before. It's tough to explain, but the openness of the reverberating piano chords makes it easy to picture Shaun, sitting alone at his piano in a huge mansion, in a room with a window out onto a lush garden, playing a somber tune as the sun comes up. You'd expect a song like this to "build" in some way and reach a crescendo, but the weird part is that it doesn't quite do that (even if a string arrangement tries its darndest near the end of the song). The mood of the song remains delicate and reflective, with the percussion largely reduced to the gentle clicking of drumsticks. It's as if Shaun just wants to sit and ponder without waking up the rest of the household. The subject of his pondering is the blurred mixture of good and evil that resides within each of us - the darkness that fights to keep the day at bay. He knows that only with God's help and his submission can the daylight ever win. The fragile nature of this song might have cost it a real shot at radio play, but you know, radio should be required to be friendly to genuinely good songs like this, and not the other way around.

Need You More
I just want to cling to grace
That has filled my empty place
And my heart with gratitude
For so much more than I deserve...
Shaun pulls out an odd rhythm for this one - I think it's 3/2 or 6/4 or something of that nature - there's one more measure there than expected, and it kind of helps the earthy instrumentation to ramble along, creating a unique vibe. Folksy instruments like the accordion and banjo figure more prominently - you might say that it's a homage to Jars of Clay (Shaun is a big fan) that doesn't rip them off in the process. The lyrics are pretty simple, essentially stating that Shaun wants a lot of things like peace in time of war and overall happiness, but he recognizes that these wants are mere fluff when compared to his need for God. He's building on the central theme of the album here - the need to not lose sight of God in the midst of all of the things that we want for ourselves.

Without You
There's a couple laughing at a table next to mine
The waiter keeps on asking me if I'm alright
I hate to bore him with the truth, so I'll just lie
And pretend I'm fine without you...
Shaun debuted this song on Jars of Clay's The Eleventh Hour Tour in 2002, which he opened for. At the time, when it was just Shaun and an acoustic guitar and a bunch of people who probably didn't know him from Adam, he livened up this song with his quirky sense of humor, interjecting comments about how he knew that this song, written for his wife, was cheesy as all get-out and that it would only get worse as it went on. Hearing it on the album, you'd never know that he had such a sense of humor about it, since he plays it with more of a straight face. The song actually sounds like more of a workmanlike pop/rock ballad here, since the guitars aren't doing much more than a simple strum and the drums and clunking along at a rather dull pace... I personally think the song could have been dressed in more appealing musical clothing. But it's still a lovely ode to his wife, indicating to her that road life isn't nearly as exciting as his time at home with her. The song does stray a bit from the theme of the album, but as far as straight-up romantic love songs go, it ain't bad. The presence of the accordion helps once again to spice things up a bit - you can picture Shaun sitting in a nice restaurant somewhere and wishing he wasn't alone.

Jesus
Jesus with worn wrinkled hands
Jesus sows a patch of land
Jesus hides a tattooed arm
Jesus keeping dinner warm...
I think this was the point where I initially got frustrated with the pacing of the album. It's been mostly down-tempo so far, with the exception of the first track, and the opening of this song, featuring just Shaun's voice and a cello, brings things to an almost complete standstill after the unassuming pace of the last few songs. I don't know if placing this song immediately after "Without You" was such a wise idea, and I don't know if starting this song off with a chorus that is practically whispered (with the vocals only coming from one speaker - interesting choice there) was such a wise idea, either. Nevertheless, it's a starkly beautiful song once it gets past its odd start. The solemn piano from the title track is a major factor here, giving the song a pristine nature that no massive choir or string arrangement could ever touch as it echoes off into cold silence. Shaun intentionally used a simple lyrical approach on this one - he wanted to take the notion that the slow songs were the meatier ones and the fast songs had the simple lyrics, and turn that around. So what we've got is a very basic, meekly sung chorus ("When we love the least/When we love the weak/When we love these/We love Jesus.") And the verses put jus the right amount of detail on that by working from examples. "Jesus trying hard to quit." "Jesus hides a tattooed arm." "Jesus swinging in my yard." Heaven forbid, it might actually make some people think, because wait a minute, the real Jesus didn't do those things, right? Shaun's point is basically to say that Jesus' likeness is in each of us, and you cannot claim to love Him without treating those people with love, despite whatever things they may be doing. It's a powerful message presented in a very abstract way, and that makes for a quietly ambitious song. (Now, if we could just do something about those clunky drums... the song is honestly lovely enough that I don't feel like it needs any percussion to propel it, but if it's gonna have percussion, I would have appreciated something a little less dirge-like.)

One of Those Days
Guess I'm not the kind that figures it's all rainbows and blue skies
Still I just can't help but notice I've got no good cause to cry...
Here begins the roller-coaster that fills out the rest of the album - slow song, fast song, slow song again. It's a bit jarring, truth be told. But to this song's credit, it does manage to ease in nicely after the quiet songs that preceeded it, letting a few rays of sunlight shine in to stir up the introspective mood before completely obliterating it with pure guitar-driven optimism. Just what the heck does Shaun think he's doing, anyway? This has to be one of the most insipidly songs I've ever heard? "Every glass half full, every drop lemonade"? Is he purposefully grabbing every cliché he can get? OK, wait a minute. I have to set aside my cliché-meter here and look at the bigger picture. Shaun is doing this on purpose. He's singing from the point of view of one happy day in an otherwise cynical and pessimistic life. He knows he's a jaded person, and what he's doing here is acknowledging that and turning the phrase "One of Those Days" around so that it describes a particularly good day instead of a particularly awful one. He knows how cynical listeners like me - like himself - will react: "How dare he be this happy!" Hiding behind this fun-loving façade is an important message - it's OK to be "a realist by trade", but some days, you need to let go and take hold of joy and stop nitpicking at all the little cracks that keep life from being absolutely perfect. Point taken.

To Be Honest
I play pretend with my smile painted on
At best I'm a clown, and at worst I'm a con
Convincing the crowd and myself nothing's wrong...
Shifting back into his more pensive, introspective mode, Shaun offers up another quiet ballad, rolling along on a gentle piano and a 3/4 rhythm, and once again utilizing an unorthodox chord progression to make his chorus stand out. This song is likely to get overlooked by the typical listener, but Shaun managed to grab my attention with the first hushed lines that escape his lips - "I'm scared to wander outside major keys, so I sing a song that I wrote just to please." It's an indictment of himself for the times that he's chosen to fake happiness instead of opening up about what's really going on (which isn't to be confused with the previous song, which is being honest about happiness). He knows that it's easy to put on an act while on stage, but he's realizing here that there is a time and a place for the "minor key" mode, even if it's at the risk of people not wanting to listen. Much like in the song "Blank Page", he catches himself trying to cover up and explain away his failures, and realizes that if he gets rid of those aspects of who he is, he gets rid of the reason for his need for the God that he's singing about. While my first impression of Twilight was extremely skewed compared to how I see it now, I can safely say that this song was my favorite right away, and it has managed to keep that distinction.

I Love You
I'm just glad that you didn't run
Cause we've all been there everyone
I know you're feeling dirty and dumb, no need to...
One last rock song - another fast and fun-loving ditty in the vein of "See You", but peppered with some lively piano playing - suddenly punctuates the silence. Way to startle the soccer moms, eh? (I'm mostly kidding when I give the prototypical "soccer moms" a hard time. They need Jesus, too, but my guess is Jesus wouldn't mind if they expanded their horizons a bit.) Much like "One of Those Days", this song runs the risk of sounding too trite for its own good, especially since the chorus is just the song's title repeated again and again, but when studying the verses, you can tell that Shaun is once again playing the cynic and trying to tie a proverbial string around his finger to make sure he doesn't forget a very basic lesson. He's speaking to someone here, presumably from the perspective of what God would want to say to them, urging them to remember that no mattered how much they've screwed up, they're still loved. Period. No ifs, ands, buts, or other fine print. The concept is really a complete duh, but you'd be surprised how often we Christians forget that. Shaun and his band attack this song with glad abandon (he even lets out a joyous scream at one point), and while the instruments mush together a bit due to being picked up by one another's microphones and the song doesn't quite sound as "big" as it ought to, it's still a blast.

God of Us
Love has come, weighted down
By splintered beam and thorny crown
To take our nails, and taste our steel
Spill His life, and grace reveal...
The studio portion of the album ends here, with a flowing acoustic number that bears striking similarity to Chris Rice's seasonal tune "Welcome to Our World". (It's mostly in the rhythm and the pattern of the lyrics.) The lyrics start with Christmas and the arrival of Emmanuel, much like the Rice song, but Shaun's poetic language extends from there to describe the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the arrival of the Holy Spirit to connect us back to God. It's a different writing style than I'm used to from him, once again relying on more abstract phrasing, tied together by simple choruses that change one connecting word to great effect - "God with us" becomes "God for us" and then "God in us" and finally "God of us".

Here I Am
This track is actually a very brief speech from Shaun before a live audience that segues into a hidden section of four worship songs performed acoustically. He reminds his audiences that while he wants to worship with them in that setting, the music itself is not worship and we have to be careful not to worship a singer or a song, but instead we should take to hear the need to get out there and serve the needy ones whom Jesus loves. He then leads the audience in bare-bones renditions of "After the Music Fades", "Your Renown", and "Abba Father", all of which were featured on Invitation to Eavesdrop, and all of which sound more vibrant and convincing in this raw setting with a choir of fans singing along than they did on that album (though I liked them all even in their polished versions). He closes the disc by segueing into another worship song called "This Changes Everything", which I'm not familiar with but I'm guessing he didn't write. It's a lovely, intimate snapshot of what Shaun is like before a crowd, and while I was initially perturbed that they focused only on his "worship songs", I think his admonishment leading into them helps to tie it all in with the theme of the album. I'd love to hear live acoustic versions of some of his other stuff as an Easter Egg on future albums - it's simple stuff, but definitely spirited.

Well, it took almost a year, but I can finally say that Twilight is an album that is worth your time if you're a Christian looking for spiritually edifying pop/rock music that colors outside the lines a bit, or even if you're just into singer/songwriters and have an open mind about different lyrical styles and musical approaches. It's not all that "out there" and I don't think Shaun Groves intends to be that sort of an artist, but what he does, he does well. I appreciate his willingness to make his music semi-interactive in terms of how he detailed the recording process for this album and how he's interacted with fans (and some nay-sayers) on Internet message boards to get feedback on developing songs and engage in discussion about important issues facing Christian music today, such as downloading and the stringent requirements of radio and the like. He's not taking the easy way out on any of this, but I think he's one of the few "deeper thinking" Christian artists who actually has a shot at popularity and longevity within the genre. (If only that were true for more of them...)

ALBUM WORTH:
See You $1
Blank Page $2
Twilight $1.50
Need You More $1
Without You $1
Jesus $1.50
One of Those Days $1
To Be Honest $2
I Love You $1
God of Us $1
Here I Am $.50
After the Music Fades (live) $1.50
Your Renown (live) $1
Abba Father (live) $1
This Changes Everything (live) $1
TOTAL: $18

CONCLUSION: The bonus material makes it worth more than it looks like a 10-song album could be. But take that away, and you've still got a fairly solid collection of tunes with some slight flaws, that would be worth picking up at a slightly reduced price.

Website: http://www.shaungroves.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying