The David Crowder Band is one of those groups that has really had to earn my trust over the years. When they started out with their national debut Can You Hear Us?, I was thoroughly unimpressed, having expected comparisons to the Dave Matthews Band and other jam bands to reflect some sort of musical ingenuity and fluidity on the band's part. I instead found a rather lukewarm and awkward record with only a few standout tracks... one of which was a Delirious? cover. So I didn't actively seek out the band's next album Illuminate, but fortunately that one was sent to me by a record label for review. My initial reaction was that the musicianship had improved vastly, but the lyrics were still somewhat cliché and not fully indicative of the theme the band was going for. Then I listened some more... a lot more... and quickly forgot my criticisms. Illuminate was one of the more absorbing albums of 2003, ensuring repeated play well into 2004 and beyond. The album was the basis for an excellent live show, and even an amusing remix EP, Sunsets & Sushi, which came out earlier this year. The songs just stood the test of time, despite some of them being deceptively simplistic at first. The DCB had just the right blend of spontaneity, light-heartedness, reverence, quirkiness, and ironic hairdos. Apparently the Christian music community agreed... over the last few years, they've managed to creep up into the A-list of well-known CCM bands, and for once, I think that's actually deserved.

Their newest album, A Collision, has probably been one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year 2005. The band has been dropping hints about a rather complex theme/story existing as the framework for the album ever since a pair of curious links listed in their Sunsets & Sushi liner notes led me to David Crowder's Xanga (a "blog", or weblog, for those who don't speak Web-geek). Often he would post snippets of science texts, long, rambling stories that may or may not have had anything to do with the songs he was writing, pictures of random fans who attended live events, and other goodies to get us all salivating for the album due out in September. What caught my attention more than anything else was the track listing for this puppy - 21 tracks! Not only that, but a lot of them seemed to subscribe to the Sufjan Stevens school of song titling. Indeed, David and his crew seem to have absorbed some of Sufjan's mentality - seems like they discovered the guy around the time I did. While their outlook is still more pop/rock with electronic and acoustic overtones, they've paid homage to the great Michigan balladeer by covering one of his songs, and in general, I get the feeling that they're veering towards more of a creative approach to celebrating their faith through song, which moves them a little bit outside of the category of strict "worship band". I can't say that I have a problem with that - the church needs its easily learnable anthems to sing on Sunday morning, but that's not the only effective format in which man can give glory to God through music. Kudos to a band who could have just ridden the trend a while longer for realizing that.

So, is A Collision a fully-baked creative masterpiece that stands as a perfect example of what Christian music is doing right these days? Well, not quite. I think that the band's reach kind of exceeds its grasp on this record. They clearly wanted to be less predictable, and hide a lot of little sonic surprises for the listener within the record, and while they've accomplished those goals, it's kind of come at the expense of an album that flows well and has a unified list of songs/interludes that contribute to the whole picture in a non-distracting way. The interludes on Illuminate were often little song snippets used as calm segues in between the "real" songs - here, they could be song snippets, but they could also include random background noise from the studio, abrupt cut-offs from one recording to something completely different, or just repetition that takes things a little too far for a "non-song". The cynical might say that this is a way of padding an album to make it seem more dense than it is. I just think it's a shame that they spent so much effort ruining what could have been good intros/outros to many of the solid songs on this project with Amnesiac-esque transitions (that's for you Radiohead fans). I'm not one for starting with a traditional four-bar intro or ending with a safe Nashville fade on every song, but you can only do so much abrupt stuff before it becomes an annoying idiosyncrasy.

Nevertheless, this is a fairly minor complaint, as the bulk of the song content on this record (14 full songs out of 21 tracks) is pretty solid. Some of it is fairly reliable DCB stuff that existing fans will latch onto immediately. That stuff comes mostly in the "A part", the first quarter of the album, with the "B part" being a bigger departure, the "C part" combining the best of both worlds and perhaps being the album's strongest segment, and the "D part" winding things down with an oddball mix of the excellent and the bizarre. Some of these songs take amusing left turns into unexpected musical territory, or use the band's DJ equipment and quirky rhythmic sensibilities to create sublime meditations on the ironically happy subject of death that the record explores. It's a concept album where the concept could be about 10 different things, depending on what's popping into David Crowder's brain at the moment. Despite the sometimes irritating flaws, it's definitely a trip worth taking, so let's get to the task of exploring A Collision at the subatomic level.

A PART

Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven But Nobody Wants to Die (A Walk Down Stairs)
It took me a few listens to realize this, but this track is a really crappy way to start off a worship album. I definitely get how David Crowder singing a snippet of a country song by Loretta Lynn links to the overall theme of the album, so if this were just that song or a snippet of that song, it would probably be a pretty good opening. I love hearing the band take more of a rockabilly approach (though the sound is strained because it's made to sound like it's being played back on a record player or something), but it fades out after thirty seconds or so, leaving a near-vacuum where all that can be heard is the sound of a person slowly walking down the stairs. It's a totally awkward segue into the first "real song", and the first of several moments where listening to this album in the car can be really frustrating, due to ambient noise drowning out what's on the CD.

Come and Listen
Let me tell You what he has done for me
He has done for you, He has done for us...
It's possible that the impression they were going for on that last track is that David Crowder decided to go downstairs for a while to play the piano before returning to the studio to tinker some more with the new album. But this rather plain ballad just doesn't feel right at the start of this album. Its melody and lyrics are too simple and repetitive, making Mike Hogan's violin the only remotely interesting thing about it. I like that they tried to open with an unorthodox call to worship, but this one just isn't working for me. I expect more insightful sentiments from the DCB than just "Praise our God, for He is good" again and again.

Here Is Our King
From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground
From wherever searching comes
The look itself is a trace of what we're looking for...
As fun as it is to hear the full band come swooping in for an upbeat song first premiered on this year's Passion: How Great Is Our God CD, I have to admit that I was hoping this one would morph into something less standard for the DCB by the time a studio recording was made available. First time I heard this one, I basically thought, "It's fun, but it's basically 'O Praise Him' all over again". And since it doesn't have the overlapping sing-alongs and other little bits that push the previous song (which in turn, was more or less an update of "Our Love Is Loud" to begin with), I can't really give the DCB major points for originality. It's mildly fun, mostly due to the bleeping electronics that pop in and out and the slamming bridge that changes the time signature a little bit. But I have to admit, for an album that was supposed to be brilliant, the band isn't off to the greatest start.

Wholly Yours
You are everything that is bright and clearn
The antonym of me, You are divinity...
At this point the band is more or less following the pattern of the last record, with a mid-tempo, acoustic-driven song in the vein of "Open Skies" (though a little less loose and celebratory than that one was) following the "big worship anthem". This one uses some clever analogies to compare us to God as earth is to sky, dwelling on the dichotomy between depravity and divinity that is the record's central focus. Heck, David even used the word "antonym" - when's the last time you heard that in a modern worship song? Unfortunately, the band's assurance of their own cleverness gets a bit too cheeky (and easy to misunderstand) when the chorus of "You are holy, holy, holy" later becomes "I am wholly, wholly, wholly Yours." I've heard the holy/wholly pun used enough times that it's starting to get a bit old, you guys.

Foreverandever Etc...
I think I'm on the brink of something large
Maybe like the breaking of a dawn
Or maybe like a match being lit, or the sinking of a ship
Letting go gives a better grip...
As the previous song abruptly cuts off, leaving silence instead of a snappy segue (get used to that sort of thing, folks), the faint sound of a person whistling the next song's chorus melody can be heard, and then the band jumps into a delightfully nerdy dance/rock routine that rivals the last record's "No One Like You" in the category of overall peppiness. Yeah, I enjoy this one, even though it's gonna irritate a lot of people with its unabashed sing-song nature, it's "Breakfast-esque whistling interlude (that's for you Newsboys fans), and the out-of-breath repetitions of "Forever and ever and ever" near the end. The band drops some words like "indelible" in there just to smarten up the verses a little bit, but I still feel like we're in fairly standard lyrical territory as far as modern worship goes. I've spent the entire A Part wondering when the band will take it to the next level, and it's only when this song ends with the sudden sounds of the CD skipping (guaranteed to freak out and/or annoy any first time listener) that this question starts to get answered.

B PART

(A Quiet Interlude)
OK, I totally recognize that tune. A pretty string arrangement offers a prelude of things to come by running through the chorus of an upcoming song a few times. It's kind of an oddly placed interlude, since it comes between two "poppier" songs, but whatever.

A Beautiful Collision
So courageous until now, fumbling and scared
So afraid You'll find me out, alone here with my doubt...
The album's theme song shows some promise, starting off as a more unassuming mid-tempo tune with a chorus that doesn't exactly scream "memorable and catchy". But the band starts to break out of their lyrical mold here, using fewer modern worship buzzwords and more of a poetic/conversational method to describe the collision between holiness and sin that happens in our relationships with God. The song really picks up momentum as just the right amount of guitar fuzz and electronic tweaking of the drums makes for some excellent instrumental interplay near the end. I don't mind songs that start off more ordinary when they develop to give us more of a sense of grandeur near the end, and this one does that in an addictive way. It's catchy more for its rhythm than its melody, I think.

Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the World
I remember reading on David Crowder's Xanga that the band had trouble getting this sample cleared due to copyright issues, but I'm glad that they worked that out. In a Rattle and Hum-esque move (that's for you U2 fans), a recording of a gospel choir is used as a brief interlude, and the interesting thing that the band notes about this performance is that it's black people trying to sound white in an era where music made by black people wasn't really accepted. As a result, it kind of symbolizes a halfway point between bondage and freedom - these people are no longer slaves, but still considered second-class citizens, and looking ahead to Heaven for the freedom they'll never completely find on Earth. There's an apt analogy in the subtext - I wish this much could be communicated through every brief interlude on this record.

Be Lifted or Hope Rising
How long 'til You free us?
'Til You come back, we ain't giving up
How long 'til You mend us?
'Til You come back, we ain't giving up...
In addition to all that I just mentioned, the choir makes for a great segue into the acoustic guitar riff that opens up this song. Here's where the album really starts to hit its stride, as the band deftly moves from a solemn, Gospel music sort of mood, into a slowly simmering rock anthem with some great lead guitar work and the impassioned plea that repeats again and again - "How long?" There's a triumphant sense of rising up, just as the chorus mentions, before the song briefly slips into a fit of electronic glitches (again making the record sound like it's skipping) that very abruptly breaks into a total "Yee-hah!" moment with banjos and quick hand-clapping and the band encouraging us, "Lift up your head!" And that's all one track. It may sound like two completely different songs pasted together, but in this case, I have to admit it's a brilliant move that I'd have never expected. The only thing I dislike is how it ends in a lengthy recording of an older man telling an audience how everywhere they go, people like to hear the old-time hymns and stuff. A crowd can be heard applauding as this leads into the next track.

I Saw the Light
When death takes me down and I breathe here no more
My anthem will sound on that eternal shore
When I join with the angels in Heaven on high...
Continuing with the shameless genre-shift into country music (hey, they're from Texas, after all), the banjos and hand-clapping go wild as the group turns the classic Hank Williams tune (previously covered in rockabilly mode by This Train), with one of Johnny Cash's verses, and even one supplied by Crowder, thrown in for good measure. Mike Hogan's fiddle fits into this scenario perfectly, and it's quite a surprise that this moment fits into a recording by a band who usually spends a lot of its time twiddling around with electronic stuff. It's fun for about two minutes, until the band decides to shut it all down and leave David Crowder slowly strumming his guitar, singing the final verse an a glacial pace. As he finishes the verse, some sort of screeching noise rapidly comes up behind him, provoking a brief "nails-on-a-chalkboard" type of response from me before the track very suddenly cuts off, leading into another quiet song. Dude, if I want transitions like that, I'll play your CD on random, OK?

O God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)
There's no other man who could raise the dead
So do what You can to anoint my head...
Well, here's the track I was so excited about when I first heard that the band was going to do it. They went and covered Sufjan Stevens, at last giving the guy his due and hopefully encouraging a few more daring CCM fans to check out his music. Tune-wise, they're pretty faithful to the Michigan original, keeping the piano intro and the slow, swaying 6/8 rhythm, substituting a little violin for where the horns and multi-tracked vocals would fill in a little more melody in Sufjan's version. It's not as long as Sufjan's version (which, admittedly, is the weakest track on an otherwise unbelievably great album), but unfortunately that's partially due to Crowder leaving out the bridge section, "Would the righteous still remain? Would my body stay the same?" I hate it when people cover songs and leave out lyrics, so I have to dock points for that. The ending also kind of trails off, not making as powerful an impression as the maelstrom of horns and cymbals that swelled at the end of the original. Personally, I'd have taken the string interlude from a few tracks earlier and used it as an outro here - the album would just plain flow better that way.

C PART

(B Quiet Interlude)
It makes sense to pick up the pace with a slower interlude here as we go back from quiet to loud, so in terms of the gradually building musical framework here, I'm all good with that. What I'm not so keen on is how the entire interlude is just "Be more quiet now, and wait for a voice to say." Wait for a voice to say what? I didn't need two minutes of that, just for you to not complete a thought.

Do Not Move
The costliest of costs, the deadliest of loss
The wonder of the cross, the breath of life that stops...
I remember saying when I reviewed the Sunsets & Sushi EP that I looked forward to seeing how the band integrated their love for electronica into their new project. This track is the answer to that question, starting off with a generous helping of IDM-inspired electronic beatboxing, which goes for nearly a minute, establishing a rhythmic and melodic framework for the song that makes the payoff feel even better when the band goes into rock-out mode. The lyrics here are ridiculously simple, with Crowder simply repeating, "I don't want to move, I don't think I could" as the track slowly moves forward, exploding in its chorus of "Breathe in deeper now!" It's not so much a "vertical" worship song as it is a catalyst for the relief of tension needed to help us focus on God. It's a tool, and a fine tool at that. it's one of those songs that you can get lost in - the melodic and rhythmic electronic fragments, the fuzzy guitars, the unexpected piano interlude in the middle - it's all excellent. This one stands out as the best tune on the record by a mile, and a great example of what modern technology can do to aid us in tuning in to the timeless voice of God. The paradox of sweeping motion and the urge to be still is a beautiful one.

Come Awake
You are not the only one who feels like the only one
Night soon will be lifted, friend
Just be quiet and wait for a voice that will say...
We've probably heard our share of songs that start with the sound of a heart monitor (Switchfoot's "More than Fine" comes to mind), but when it's used here, it ties into the record's theme of finding joy in death. It might not be physical death - it might be death to the things of this world. In any case, this one sounds like it's going to be dull when its slow, dry electric riff and its weary drums first come in, with Crowder singing each syllable of the verse at a rather slow rate. But it's another one of those songs that starts meekly and builds - the music takes a glorious upturn as the weary, sleepy feeling gradually turns into a cry of "Wake up, wake up!" as an alarm clock can be heard ringing. The interplay between all of the band members (particularly the drummer) is brilliant on this one, and again, though it's not a direct "worship song", it's one of the album's most genuinely worshipful moments.

You Are My Joy
And I cannot hold it in and remain composed
Love's taken over me and so I propose
The letting myself go...
More or less keeping the same tempo, but breaking in suddenly after a peaceful resolution to this previous song, is this tune, a more "vertical" piece about being set on fire and finding joy in the Lord. Simple stuff, but I like the way it's played out, with the irresistible, ascending chorus melody (even if it just repeats the song's title four times), and the break into song where David cries "I need to catch my breath, give ma a moment now". Then that lovely violin comes in, altering the song's chord progression for a while before bringing it back around to the final chorus and a few happy cries of "I'm laughing so hard!"

Our Happy Home
There in celestial strains, enraptured myriads sing
There love in every bosom reigns, for God Himself is King...
Would you believe it, this one's a hymn from the 17th century. I'm willing to bet they totally retooled the melody and rhythm, as there's no way something written for the church back then would have such a driving beat to it. It starts out as kind of a funky acoustic guitar-and-banjo jam (guitarist Jack Parker is the man for whipping that banjo out), based on a trippy, cymbal-heavy drum riff from B-Wack (the guy's stage name couldn't be more appropriate; at least, if you consider "Wack" to be a good thing). It's a song about looking forward to the "new Jerusalem", a.k.a. Heaven, and the band spares no expense in celebrating that joyfully, leaving the "thee"s and "thou"s intact despite the modern setting. Towards the end, the band has a little fun with the rhythm, cutting it off at seemingly random intervals, before coming to another abrupt end (which makes a little sense this time around).

D PART

(Repeat/Return) or When the Seventh Angel Sounded His Trumpet, and There Were Loud Voices in Heaven, Which Said: "The Kingdom of the World Has Become the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ, and He Will Reign Foreverandever" Etc...
All that effort to name a track that just ended up being 10 seconds of irritating guitar feedback. Oooooo... kay.

We Win!
We're gonna shout loud, loud until the walls come down
Shout loud, loud until the walls come down
Loud until the walls come down...
Ready for a dorky youth-group sing-along? Alright, I'll admit, this one's fun, and another good example of how the band doesn't care if their love of dance rock isn't exactly trendy right now. It's basically a song that declares war on the enemy, referencing Joshua's battle against Jericho where playing their instruments made the city walls collapse. "We've already won and you don't have a chance", David taunts. It would be totally stupid if not for how it fit into the thematic flow of the album - we've kind of reached a "Revelation" chapter here after going through more of a personal salvation process in parts B and C. the song gets a little tedious after it starts to wind down at about the two minute marks, and then revs back up again, only to do more of the same. But it's fun for a little while.

Rescue Is Coming (B Walk Down Stairs)
And there's nothing wrong with you
And nothing left to do but believe something bigger
And there's nothing wrong with love
I know it's just enough to believe...
I absolutely love the pristine way that this track starts out. A delicate electronic melody intertwines with some single-string acoustic guitar picking, creating sort of a futuristic folk sound, if that makes any sense. The song returns the band to more of a conversational mode, talking about that final epiphany, that moment of breaking through the clouds when a person realizes that they've found very real salvation. This is the kind of feeling that I wish more modern worship albums could really capture! While it explodes into another repetitive chorus, there's a lot of musical ground covered here over the span of about six minutes, after which the band fades out and Crowder is back in his studio, strumming the chords on his acoustic guitar as if the entire album had just been a vision in his head. That would have made for a great ending to the album, if we didn't have to suffer through more of the "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" and random bumping around in the studio noise. Adding insult to injury, the non-music extends into the next one and a half tracks.

A Conversation
This entire track is an interview. All three minutes of it. Um, guys, there's this thing called a CD-ROM. It plays bonus material and stuff for people when they put a CD in their computer. Look into it. Anyway, I guess you could say that the interview, between Crowder and a bumbling idiot reporter who can't understand what on Earth he's talking about (perhaps a subtle jab at the inability of the CCM world to accept the role art plays in worship?), is meant to help us grasp the theme of the album, but there are a lot of cut-off sentences and award "uh"s and "okay"s and so forth that it becomes kind of tedious after a while.

The Lark Ascending or (Perhaps More Accurately I'm Just Trying To Make You Sing)
And I'm trying to make you feel that this is for real
That life is happening, that it means everything...
And the interview continues! Now the two guys are discussing the last track, a classical piece which slowly fades in as background music while Crowder attempts to explain the meaning of the piece to the dumb-as-bricks reporter. Even Crowder admits that he doesn't fully understand the relevance of the lark metaphor - and I like that idea, that the art has kind of a life of its own and Crowder doesn't need to have a full grasp on it in order to capture it on record. But I didn't need to sit through four minutes of conversation just to get to a final half song to understand this concept. Basically, Crowder's saying that at the end of the day, he just wants to compel us to sing along and mean it. An admirable goal; perhaps something interesting to stick in as a hidden track, but I'd honestly rather sit through four minutes of silence instead of having to listen to that conversation again and again just to get here. it makes the final payoff seem rather lackluster.

Well, even if the band's made some head-scratching decisions on this album (and hey, maybe I'm just the dumb-as-bricks critic who doesn't get it), it's clear that they want to do more than give us warm fuzzies - they want to start conversations about what worship is and how we can more fully experience the mystery of how God communicates with us. That's an admirable goal, and even when admirable goals result in inconsistent records, they can still be very interesting records to dissect. Despite how difficult it is to adjust to A Collision's quirks, I still think it shows a lot of talent on the band's part, and it's worth spending some time with if you enjoyed Illuminate, or if you're just tired of hearing worship bands doing the same old U2 impressions in open E.

ALBUM WORTH:
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven -$.50
Come and Listen $0
Here Is Our King $.50
Wholly Yours $.50
Foreverandever Etc... $1
(A Quiet Interlude) $0
A Beautiful Collision $1
Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the World $.50
Be Lifted or Hope Rising $2
I Saw the Light $1
O God, Where Are You Now? $1
(B Quiet Interlude) $0
Do Not Move $2
Come Awake $1.50
You Are My Joy $1.50
Our Happy Home $2
(Repeat/Return) $0
We Win! $.50
Rescue Is Coming $1.50
A Conversation -$.50
The Lark Ascending $0
TOTAL: $15

Band Members:
David Crowder: Lead vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, programming
Jason Solley: Electric guitar
Mike Hogan: Violins and vinyl
Jack Parker: Keyboards, electric guitars, banjo
Mike D.: Bass, programming
B-Wack: Drums, programming

Website: http://www.davidcrowderband.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Reading or Studying