In all of the music industry, there is perhaps no sub-genre which gets maligned more frequently than Christian music. Being a Christian who has listened to a lot of Christian music for many years, this used to really bother me, as if it was only being done due to unfair discrimination by mean, soulless "secular" people. Then I got older and started to develop this thing called "taste", and it wasn't long before I realized that while I may have found a number of Christian artists whose music is worthwhile and stands up on its own as good art (or at least good entertainment), there are far many more Christian artists whose work only serves to feed the stereotype. Such artists have only frustrated me more and more over the years. While I don't think it's fair to expect all of them to have a style and means of communication that sounds hip to the outside world (some of them are called to make music for fellow Christians, and that's totally fine if it's not something other people can get into), I do think that the industry allows far too much leeway for artists who are less talented (or just plain lazy) to get by and even become huge success stories. The problem is that we assume music made by our fellow Christians must be good if it was made with a good intent. And sometimes, the best of intentions can't overcome the fact that a musician simply doesn't know what he or she is doing. Somebody has to speak up when this appears to be the case, and as you've probably figured out by now, I'm trying to be one of those people who speaks up. I kind of have to, if I don't want the stereotype to persist.

There is perhaps no better case of "good intent, horrid execution" than the vocal pop group FFH and their latest album Voice from Home. I've disliked the music of FFH since somewhere around their second album or so - even on their first, I thought they were just merely okay, a watered-down folk-pop sort of group that couldn't make up their minds whether they wanted to be Avalon or Caedmon's Call, but who at least had a solid first single ("One of These Days"). The few songs I managed to endure (mostly radio singles, but I checked out a few albums) between then and now seemed to get progressively worse, and now we've arrived at their sixth album, which basically hits rock bottom. This thing is off the scale on both the boring meter and the cheese meter. And the sad part is that I honestly and truly admire the intent that they had here.

You see, the CCM industry has been overrun with tons of "modern worship" lately. Songs from us to God, declaring how good and mighty God is. Not a bad thing, but it's become an increasingly narrow subject that excuses poor lyrics in favor of a created feeling. FFH, who probably wasn't as down on this trend as I but who did recognize it, decided to switch things around, feeling that God's people didn't have a very good grasp on how God felt about us, and wanting to give us a collection of songs that would reaffirm how much God loved us. I thought that was a great idea. Unfortunately, the way they go about this is perhaps even more insipid than some of the most thoughtless modern worship albums I've heard. Voice from Home turns out to be a veritable obstacle course of songwriting cliches, mixed and overused metaphors, and happy-go-lucky but ultimately shaky theology. Most of this is because God is largely portrayed as some sort of pitiable dejected lover, helplessly waiting around for people to decide they wanna talk to Him again. It's a portrayal that I griped about when reviewing a few Kutless songs (and boy, does listening to this album make Kutless seem like a step up!) - the Bible uses romantic love as a metaphor for our relationship with God, and that's fine from our end, but it falls short when you extend the analogy so far that God just sounds like a cute, shy boyfriend in the sky. The God that FFH portrays on this album sounds like a total wimp to me. Yes, I wholeheartedly believes that God loves us, doesn't judge us by how "cool" we are or even how many things we do wrong, and wants more than anything else for us to know Him. I'm jaded about many things, but not about that. Still, there's a "tough love" element to that, as seen in the Bible, and FFH totally misses the challenging part of this message by focusing on the mushy aspects and the "oh, poor lonely God" sentiments. The God I believe in takes a bit more action that that, you know what I mean?

Even if I had no theological issues with the hack songwriting presented here, I would still find FFH so gratingly annoying to listen to that getting through an album without starting to feel extremely irritable would be a real challenge. Lead singer Jeromy Diebler unfortunately does the lion's share of the vocal work despite the fact that FFH was once an acapella vocal group - his wife Jennifer Diebler gets to lead or harmonize from time to time, but the other two guys, relegated to bland instrumental duties, are MIA, vocally speaking, for much of the album. (Unless they both just happen to sound like Jeromy, which would suck for them, but even if that's the case, they rarely ever sing in unison. I know they can create a good vocal arrangement. I've heard "Big Fish". They supposedly once did nothing but vocals. What the heck's wrong with these guys?) To give you a better idea of what Jeromy sounds like, imagine the most high-pitched, nasal and extremely nerdy of the four guys from your average barbershop quartet. Now cross that with the voice of Ned Flanders from The Simpsons, only with two pencils shoved up his nose. That'll give you a pretty good idea of what you have to contend with here. To put it quite bluntly, if this were what the real voice of God sounded like, I'd be tempted to consider Satanism.

OK, fine, so a guy can't help the voice God gave him (though it might be a sign from the Almighty that he wasn't meant for a career in vocal performance, but that's neither here nor there), but he can help the music that he and his buddies create. If they want to reach an audience of seekers who avoid the church because they think God hates them, then great, but what they don't realize is that these people aren't stupid and shouldn't be spoken to like 10-year-olds. And if their expected audience is 10-year-olds, then this is awfully dull music to expect that age group to enjoy. I can't even find a lot of adults who would like this stuff - it's bland pop/rock with thin guitars, languid programmed drum grooves from time to time, really loungey keyboards, and about the whitest take on "soul" that you can think of in terms of a lot of the vocal and melodic inflections. I guess somebody somewhere must think this is pretty classy, because people keep buying their albums and Essential Records hasn't forced a major image overhaul on 'em or dropped 'em from their revolving door roster in over seven years. Let's be honest. People who buy this are buying it for a feel-good message and a mildly catchy tune that won't offend their sensitive ears. They're not buying it because they think it's well-made music, they're buying it because it doesn't offend them or require them to think.

And isn't that a shame, that a message so compelling and complex as the completely un-merit-based love of God for people who completely don't deserve it gets treated so superficially by people who do apparently have a true and strong desire for people to know about it? It just goes to show that you can state truth, but if you can't present it in a compelling manner that at least makes some logical sense, most of the people in this country who don't believe it aren't gonna give you the time of day. I don't blame 'em, because I wouldn't, either. God has a lot more to say than just, "I think you're really neat and I wish you'd spend more time with Me so I can make you feel happy." I can't pretend to know everything that God would have to say, but darn it, if I were going to write a song imagining what God might have to say to people who had turned away from Him, I'd at least try a little harder to give it some real gravity. That's a foreign concept on Voice from Home, which goes out of its way from front to back to be as light and airy, and ultimately, as useless as possible.

The Only Hand You Need
You know an album is getting off to a bad start when it has to feature a montage of voices telling you all about the record's theme, in case you won't glean that much from the songs. Here, we get lectured by snippets of people talking about how "love is not a fairytale" and so forth - coupled with Jeromy's lyrical approach, which goes, "Let me tell you a story, it's about a love affair we had before you turned away", it seems like the language is more appropriate for some steamy eligible bachelor who got turned down in favor of sleazy gigolos, than for God. I'm not opposed to using the romantic angle as an analogy, but really, "love affair"? Sounds naughty. It doesn't help that the languid piano and guitar get the album off to such a sluggish start - for a song that wants to lead off a supposedly compelling album, it sounds way too chill to be believable. The question asked in the chorus is valid - "Why do you keep holding on to everything but me?", but when God is said to be "the only hand You need", it comes across as kind of cheap - like, you guys haven't told me why I need a "hand" in the first place. I can't seem to find the other vocalists anywhere in the mix, except for the occasional weak "ah-ah" in the background, and this wouldn't be so bad if the lead were shared a bit more, but that isn't FFH's way, so I'll just have to accept it.

Great Big Problem
This song starts with... an actual decent electric guitar riff! Whoa! The band moves into breezy fast pop/rock mode for this one, and it doesn't sound too bad, until the song whips out the concept of jealousy and basically becomes a big pity party for God, the lonely jilted lover. God's jealousy when we turn to things that are obviously a lot less helpful to us and less worthy of our adoration is mentioned in the Bible, and a worthwhile topic to discuss if it can be done with genuine conviction. But FFH squanders all that by trying too hard to be cute, insinuating that God has some sort of a problem that He doesn't know how to solve because people keep sinning and He can't stop loving them. These kinds of things are cute in ditzy romantic love songs, not songs that are trying to communicate theology. It just makes God sound like He doesn't have a clue, while guilt tripping everybody else for ripping Him off. Plus there are so many "-ee" rhymes strung together that it just sounds ridiculous and childish. Score so far: Hits, 0, Misses 2.

Well Pleased
This one jumps in immediately with Jeromy's irritating voice, singing in his perkiest fashion: "You are the child that I love, in you I am well pleased". There's a jaunty, bouncy rhythm to it (like a lot of songs on this album, but a tad faster because this is apparently supposed to be "fun"), and this one basically ends up revealing itself as total cornball material before it even gets off the ground. The song appropriates words that God said to Jesus during His time on Earth, and acts as if those same words are being said to us. I'm sure God loves us a great deal, but the logic presented here actually has very little to do with that. Showing how highly God thought of Jesus - who, according to Christian beliefs, did absolutely everything right - doesn't connect the dots in terms of showing what He thinks of us. It's a non-sequitur, stolen from its context because it sounds inspirational. It's basically an excuse to string together a lot of cliches such as "When you cry in the night, I'll be the comfort that you seek." And I still can't hear the other guys at all. I hear vague vocal echoes from Jennifer, but that's about it. Musically, they try to spice things up with some electronic effects as the song fades out, but it's so half-hearted that you can barely even hear it.

Can't Let Go
Stand back, ladies and gentlemen, here comes Jeromy's wife, the June Cleaver of the new millennium, taking center stage for a breezy piano-rock track that tells us God is totally dedicated to us and can't let go! Gee, I didn't get that concept two songs ago, thanks for clarifying. It's actually not an impressive vocal lead in any way, shape, or form - she's using a vocorder or some sort of pitch correction, and her voice still sounds metallic and flattened, as if we've gone back in a time warp seven years to when it was cool for all the teenybopper singers to do that. How sad, that a grown woman thinks she has to emulate Hilary Duff in order to be culturally relevant. She finally tries to sound a little more gutsy during the bridge, but it's way too late and the attempt isn't believable anyway. Where are the guys? I need a break from the perkiness. Oh wait, they wouldn't know how to give me that anyway.

I Am Love
A chunkier programmed beat and some sort of electronic keyboard set the stage for an awkward slow dance in which... you guessed it, God is the poor sap left standing when the figurative "girl" walks out on Him. Awww. Five tracks in, and we're already getting way too redundant with the subject matter, but I'll admit that the music here is kind of fun if you ignore the lyrics. Given that Jeromy conveys words through his nostrils such as "One day this new lover will be gone, like the rest it will be moving on", ignoring them is gonna be a bit of a challenge, but let's look for something else to enjoy about this track... oh hey, actual background vocals! The rest of the guys back Jeromy up for one word - "love" - in the chorus. And they sing "na-na-na" during the bridge. Woohoo, party time! Jeromy tries to get all gritty during the song's vamp, but he just sounds like a constipated Michael W. Smith. (And speaking of which, MWS did a much better song with the same title a few years ago, albeit on an album that was otherwise almost as terrible as this one.)

Worth It All
More mid-tempo, jaunty piano stuff. Guys, an album isn't even all that fun to ridicule when half the tracks sound like each other! At least infuse the bad music-making with a little more diversity! Sheesh. This song is full of more mushy sentiments about how God's here to dry our tears and make us feel nice, with more half-hearted electric guitars buzzing about in the background. The funny thing here is that the band actually sounds like they want to let loose and do some sort of slow rock jam, but their producer won't let them. Did I mention that their producer is one Jeromy Diebler? Way to emasculate your own band, hotshot. The song is rooted in the truth that God knew us and knew our needs before we were even born, which is a good sentiment to express, but there's not much depth given to that concept here, other than the vague notion that we were worth all the effort, and "Listen baby, you don't need nobody else." (If God calls you "baby", does that make Him some sort of cosmic sugar daddy or something?) The bridge has an interesting, slightly soulful chord progression, I guess, but you know what, Michael W. Smith did a much more fun song with the same title a few years ago. (Did I say that in the last paragraph? Sorry.)

It's You
Here, Jeromy and Jennifer actually get to duet, sort of, on a track which should be a big dose of upbeat fun, but leave it to FFH to derail it with the first few lines. The crux of everything that's wrong with this album can be easily summed up by the line "You don't have to wear designer clothes if you don't want to", which has to be one of the most laughable lyrical gaffes in all of Christian music's history. It's a statement of truth, and I get it, you don't have to try to impress God, he wants you as you are, but they're explaining it the way you'd explain it to a five-year old. What adult actually thinks this way? OK, so people dress fancy to church, but come on, only an idiot would think they were doing it out of the belief that it would somehow make God like them more. (They might do it to impress others, which would make a very interesting topic for a CCM artist to tackle, but we'll leave that for a songwriter who didn't learn their craft from Saturday morning educational programming.) According to this song, God actually likes you because "It's your smile, it's your laugh, it's the look that you have every time you believe." And well, actually, that's not a statement of truth - though God may well enjoy those things about you, they don't make Him love you in and of themselves, because He loves grumpy ugly cynics with no sense of humor whatsoever as well, so read your Bibles, geniuses. Michelle Branch did a much more spiritually engaging song by this title a few years ago, and that was only like, half a song with some old-school religious radio broadcast tacked onto the end that was about half as irritating as FFH.

Through My Eyes
For a change, this song actually has kind of an interesting, sideways chorus melody - the vocals are still grating, but this one might border on classy if they weren't diddling around with the programming and cheesy keyboard sounds all the time. The lyrics are still cheesy (the line "I wait for you to ask me the truth" is repeated as if that's some sort of a powerfully worded statement of God's patience), but at least the song shows that they've expanded beyond the realm of white-bread CCM pop, into the realm of white-bread smooth jazz. Oh my! There's an actual guitar solo here! Not like a rock one, more like a smooth jazz one, which in all honesty sounds pretty darn convincing. Jeromy's urges to color outside the lines get the better of him near the end, causing some unbelievably bad vocal ad libs like "eyes-sahhh!" and a bit of silly scat singing as the song fades out. OK guys, you did something a little different and managed to come up with the least annoying song you've done in a great while, but don't get too amused with yourselves and your ability to sound pseudo-jazzy.

Grand Canyon
Now we get cliche lyrics set to a slow piano ballad. Go diversity! Jeromy sounds strained again, as he sings about a person in pain who won't call out to God. Of course, the song's title is a metaphor for the separation this person feels from God, and that's a tried and true one - see Point of Grace's classic "The Great Divide" for evidence that this idea works. (Man, how bad is it that I compare a group to Point of Grace, and POG comes out on the winning side?) But that doesn't mean that it works here, especially when you try to imagine a really big hand reaching out across the Grand Canyon - what's God gonna do, yank them across in one fell swoop? Have them walk out onto thin air like Wile E. Coyote does before he looks down and gravity kicks in? I'm probably reading too much into an analogy, but if you're gonna anthropomorphize God, don't make it sound like He has a 15-mile-long arm, for crying out loud. The second verse totally drops the metaphor temporarily, in favor of another one about "a thorn you've been holding" that causes pain and they won't let go of it, which makes no sense - maybe if the person was carrying around a flower with a thorn, that analogy would sort of work, but no, they're just holding this random thorn! Things get even worse when Jeromy asserts, "For the time being, I'll just keep on reaching to you" - so great, there's a time limit now? Way to make God sound impatient and indifferent. He also refers to God "wondering why you're just not listening", which is funny, because God knows everything, so why should He have to wonder about anything? There are actual background vocals from one of the other guys, which I guess is an improvement, and the bridge tries to do something a tad bit more whimsical and Beatle-esque with the melody, which doesn't really jive with the inspo ballad setting, but whatever. You should know that Susan Ashton sang a much more intelligent song with this same title many years ago.

Take a Chance
A little more talking shows up at the beginning of this song, just to assure us that everything FFH has been singing about is real. As one voice says, "I know it sounds crazy, but this is real, it's more real than the nose on your face." Well, thanks for clearing that up! This'll be a great tool for evangelism, so long as you're not trying to convert Ashlee Simpson. What is this business with the spoken affirmations anyway - is it one of those cheesy relaxation CD's that they sell at Target? No matter. This song can't decide if it wants to be a contemplative electric ballad or a breezy pop song. Again, the electric guitar is relegated to the bland background, and Jeromy thinks he's being all soulful again with the ad-libbing, singing something like "dum, dum, dum" or "dome, dome, dome" or whatever in between the chorus and verse, which just sounds stupid. This time around, God is trying to appeal to the gambler in all of us, pleading, "If you're gonna take a chance on someone, why can't it be me?" God, you're a lousy salesman, asking someone to just take a random stab at religious belief just because hey, why not? This is like, the poorest advertisement for Christianity, EVER. (Wait, I take that back, since there was that whole Crusades thing, and the Spanish Inquisition, and Fred Phelps is still alive and kicking... alright, it's the poorest advertisement for Christianity that actually intended to be an advertisement for Christianity, how's that?) Plus this whole "take a chance" business keeps reminding me of a much better song that was performed by Abba a really long time ago.

Come Away
Here's a surprise - I actually like the more melancholy minor key piano melody of this final song. (Or maybe I just like the fact that it's the final song. Hard to say.) It's unfortunate that the band doesn't know how to open this quiet start up into something more powerful, causing the song to drag most of the way through. What's even worse is how Jeromy mixes metaphors, comparing spiritual zeal to fire (OK, that's been done before, it's legit) and stating, "Tonight you'll feel the blaze", which is just totally awkward, because the way it's stated sounds more like the person's being sent to hell than being offered some sort of spiritual revival. A water metaphor gets used in the second verse, which fares even worse ("You've been standing in the stream, the water feeling nice"), and you're not sure if the water rising to flood levels and sweeping the person away is supposed to be a good thing or not. Finally, the person is asked to "Come away with me to the mountain of your dreams." Um, what mountain? I don't remember dreaming about no mountain. If they actually expanded on the metaphor, it might make some sense, but they're just being cheap by throwing in stock imagery and hoping we'll have listened to enough Christian music already to know the expected meaning. Jeromy and Jennifer botch their co-leading of this song, as both of them sound extremely thin and helium-laced. Norah Jones did a much better... oh, you get the idea.

Listen
As if sitting through that horrible selection of eleven redundant songs wasn't enough of a trial by fire, the group decides that it's necessary to give us a closing track, with nothing but talking over the karaoke-lite version of "I Am Love". More voices, all chattering in unison, lead of the track until they're silenced by the reassuring voices of two men in conversation, telling us infomercial style about how crazy God is about us. Funny thing is, in sermon format, these sentiments don't sound so hackneyed. It's more like your youth pastor giving a heartfelt talk on Sunday morning - maybe a little over-simplified, but no harm done. The thing is, this is a CD with songs on it. If you guys couldn't make your point over the course of eleven songs, and you can make it much more clearly and less painfully with three minutes of talking at the end, why even bother writing and recording the songs? I don't buy CD's to listen to speeches. Even if one could tolerate the rest of this album, I can't see why they'd listen to this track more than once. Here's an idea, members of FFH - why don't you guys quit music altogether and go into preaching or motivational speaking or something? If creativity and actual interesting music are so low on your list of priorities that you feel you can only use lowest-common-denominator cliches to hammer your point home over and over again, then why not take on a profession that isn't expected to be an art form? (No offense to any preachers out there - y'all are expected to communicate truth succinctly and directly, not to do creative and different things from week to week that require interpretation. It's a completely different mode of communication.)

Well, I made it through. I listened to this torturous album enough times to write a thorough review, and now that I'm done with it, it's going in the trash bin where it belongs. Seriously, I wouldn't wish it on any friends, even the ones who like really cheesy music, nor the local thrift shop, nor my worst enemies. Last thing I want is for another person to hear this and go, "Man, these guys are whack jobs. I'm glad I'm not a kooky Christian like them!" Let them hear other music by Christians that is intelligently made and that they get a hold of simply because it's good music, not because somebody has an agenda, and if they agree with the ideas that are creatively presented in the form of music, or are at least made curious by those ideas, then great, and if not, at least they'll walk away with some respect for the artist instead of total disdain.

ALBUM WORTHLESSNESS:
The Only Hand You Need -$.50
Great Big Problem -$.50
Well Pleased -$1
Can't Let Go -$1
I Am Love -$.50
Worth It All -$.50
It's You -$1
Through My Eyes $.50
Grand Canyon -$.50
Take a Chance -$1
Come Away $0
Listen -$.50
TOTAL: -$6.50

(I believe this is the most negative worth I've ever assigned to an album using this system.)

Bad Members:
Jeromy Diebler: Nerdy nasal lead vocals, retirement home lounge-style keyboards, alleged guitar, wet noodle production
Jennifer Diebler: Teenybopper girlie vocals, holding guitars in press photos
Brian Smith: Inaudible bass, snippets of background vocals
Michael Boggs: Bogged-down guitars, takes over snippets of background vocal duty after three or four words when Brian gets tired

Bad Internets: http://www.ffh.net

Recommended: No