My Own Little World

I was raised in a conservative evangelical Christian household in a suburb-like small city. Currently, I am pursuing a degree at a moderate Christian university for the purpose of pursuing a career in full-time church work and have worked in churches for this summer and the previous two. In the past couple years since going to school, I have experienced several crises of juxtaposition in my faith, pitting beliefs I have had since I was a child against a more “liberal” or “secular” understanding and being surprised when realizing that the two were not contrary but could be complementary. The juxtaposition at the crux of this wrestling has been that between faith and doubt, how the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty (or, more damningly, self-sufficiency). I say this to show why a film like First Reformed resonated with every fiber of my being. It is a treatise on the difference between facades of authenticity and the real thing, and it uses the supposed tension between...

If I’m being honest, I really want the Christian film industry to succeed. I want it to be good art that families can feel comfortable seeing in a theater. I want it to have good messages for Christians in the world today, and I want these films to do well and gain respect outside of the American evangelical sphere. There haven’t been many films of this genre, though, that have risen above one of two categories – borderline sermon or borderline propaganda – and the typical lack of production quality behind these films means that I cannot in good conscience say they are good movies either. If I’m being honest, though, I also must admit that I Can Only Imagine is one of the better Christian films of the last several years. It does a surprisingly good job proving that its story – the life of Bart Millard and how his journey led him to write the titular song – can make an emotionally compelling film, which considering how unnecessary the film seems at its outset is quite a feat. ...

One of the things I hate most in the film industry is blatant cash grabs. Adam Sandler does it, reboots do it, and superhero movies do it all the time (*cough* Fant4stic *cough*). It might not surprise you, then, that one of my least favorite sections of Hollywood is the Christian film industry. The fact that Pureflix (the most prominent Christian independent studio of recent years) is making a sequel to God’s Not Dead makes me sick because I know that it will be just as bad as (but most likely worse than) the original and pander to its target audience in the same way. I try to give them a chance with most of their new releases, but it’s getting really hard to do so, especially after the last film of theirs I saw. I’m Not Ashamed is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It’s very poorly acted, overly sterilized to where it cannot land its emotional punches, and is made in a way that makes it a complete waste of time. Films like this that talk about my Christian faith in such...

John Mark McMillan is the most famous guy you've never heard of in Christian music. Since penning the modern classic "How He Loves," he has largely lived in the small-but-active indie sector of Christian music, working his way from alternative rock on his debut The Song inside the Sounds of Breaking Down  all the way to folk-tinged indie on his last effort Borderland . That last one made me fall in love with the man's writing style and his ability to weave seamlessly between complexity and simplicity while never losing lyrical meaning (if you want an example, go listen to "Future/Past"). Because of Borderland , I preordered Mercury & Lightning  in January. Yes, that's over seven months ago. I have been sitting on pins and needles ever since, waiting to hear how McMillan would continue his stellar career. From where he was on his last project, Mercury & Lightning  feels like a natural progression musically. McMillan continues on his Springst...

Kings Kaleidoscope is literally (in Chris Traeger's voice) the best thing that ever happened to my taste in music. They partially restored my faith in Christian music's ability to be good (not an easy thing to do for me). Their only two full-length albums have gotten perfect scores from me, and one of them is even in my top 5 albums of all time. Some people would argue I have a massive bias towards them and their music. To a point, I agree: I am biased towards Kings Kaleidoscope's material. Here's the thing, though: it's actually that good.  More so than almost any other artist in Christian music, they blend musical ingenuity with superb songwriting and lyricism. Their debut flipped the switch on a new generation of worship music, while their sophomore effort progressed their sound into a relatively sparser palette while also shifting their aim from worship music to music for the Christian life. Continuing their near-perfect catalog is their latest release, Th...

Over the past several years, I've really grown to love Hillsong United. Their 2013 and 2015 releases, Zion  and Empires , respectively, have made me regain hope for the worship music industry, proving that mainstream worship music can actually be well-written and musically conscious. That being said, I was really looking forward to whatever they did next and was surprised when they announced Wonder  less than a month ago for release this weekend. The title track was so ridiculously infectious that, despite some slightly vague lyrics, I couldn't help but put it on repeat as I waited for the other tracks to be released. I don't know if it was my wild anticipation or my high expectations, but Wonder  actually lacks a little bit of enchantment now that I've listened to it in its entirety a couple of times. United has done a great job over the past couple of years of carefully cultivating a specific sound for each of their releases, with Zion  being extremely energe...

A few months ago, a British worship artist by the name of Ian Yates got in contact with me, asking me to review his upcoming album. I jumped at the chance to get a bit of an early look at a (at least in the United States) relatively unknown artist while also getting to form a bit of a relationship directly with people actually making their own music. I went and listened to all of Ian's back catalog to make sure I had a proper perspective on this new album. To be honest, I'm not really a huge fan of a whole lot of his older stuff, as it fits into the modern worship box way too snugly. There was definitely some evident improvement as I went from album to album, but on the whole it's by the books worship music. I didn't think his material was bad; it just didn't grab me in any meaningful way. That being said, Ian's new project Awaken to Love  has a lot more to offer than his prior work. It's got some solid lyricism and musical composition that are just in...

At this point in Skillet's career, most people know what to expect from these Christian hard rockers. Whenever they make an album, no matter what the explicit theme is, there will be some super emo power ballads, riff-centric upbeat harder tracks, and some symphonic strings in the background. Ever since their hit album Comatose , this is the formula they've followed and have done commercially quite well with. Most people either really relate to their music or find it derivative of itself and quite bland. I'm definitely in the latter of the two camps. I really enjoyed their 2003 release Collide  because of its rabid sonic intensity and somewhat rough-around-the-edges sound. Comatose  was slightly less enjoyable for me because of its extra layer of polish, but it still retained some originality with its addition of strings and some subtle electronic elements. However, with Awake , Skillet lost me. Their over-reliance on either ballads or remakes of "Comatose" we...

I think it can be safely said that Switchfoot is a band that has thoroughly stood the test of time. They have now released ten studio albums while maintaining a relentless touring schedule over the last nineteen years and show no signs of stopping anytime soon. The questions most bands begin to encounter at this point in their career are those of legacy and relevance. At the same time as maintaining the reputation and fanbase they've built over through their music, they typically also want to remain musically relevant and not just make new music for the sake of new music. The problem with doing the latter is it can tend to alienate the longtime fans because changes to a band's fundamental sound are jarring, especially when people have grown up with a very particular sonic image in their minds. This describes my experiences with Switchfoot perfectly. I grew up with albums like The Beautiful Letdown  and Nothing Is Sound  dominating my listening time to a ridiculous extent...

House of Heroes always has a knack for making albums that are very listenable. I began listening to the band several years ago and instantly was caught up in their album Suburba  and its catchy post-grunge rock. There was a little more pop than I preferred, but for that record it really worked. I didn't really move on from Suburba  and haven't listened to them much since then, but I do have some fond memories of driving home from work on country roads and just blaring that record. Fast forward to today, and House of Heroes is releasing their latest effort and first "official" concept album, Colors . A completely fan-funded record (that I got the privilege to support a couple of years ago), this is a new chapter for the band's evolution, both musically and lyrically. That being said, musically this effort is not always far off from the classic "House of Heroes sound" that fans have come to know and love. Lead single "Colors Run" as well as...

Whenever a lead vocalist of a band I love releases a solo side project, the results are always very interesting. Jon Foreman of Switchfoot has released a lot of solo material recently that is so different from what Switchfoot does as a band, yet it still works incredibly well. On the other hand, you have other people like Dustin Kensrue of Thrice who remain mostly unchanged in their solo material. In other words, it's interesting to see where the visible heart and soul of a band goes in its spare time. Enter Zach Bolen, frontman of the band Citizens & Saints. After two studio releases of indie rock with a worship slant, he's ready to release this set of nine tracks to the world after 12 years of writing and polishing. The question is, how did it turn out? Honestly, this is one of the coolest sounding albums I've heard all year. 1001  is definitely a departure from the more electronically-tinged work that Bolen did with Citizens & Saints, and it's also ...

Some of you might be wondering what I'm doing reviewing a Passion album. In some of my previous posts, I've pointed out that I am not a fan of live worship albums, and that's all that Passion does. Granted, they do it better than almost anyone on an annual basis, but their releases are generally pretty similar year to year. If you've heard one, you've heard them all. Apparently, not anymore. When they released this online on January 1, I thought to myself, "That's weird: Passion 2016 hasn't even happened yet. There's no way they have a live album ready yet." Well, that's because it's not live: this album is completely recorded in a studio. I'm a little surprised I didn't hear more about this when Salvation's Tide Is Rising  dropped. This was a potential game-changer here. The last of the three major worship music camps (the other two are Bethel and Hillsong, by the way) to have not released a studio album is finall...

The City Harmonic has become known as one of the few links between the truly alternative and the truly mainstream strands of worship music, sounding familiar enough to capture the hearts of both while also bringing a unique piano-based touch to their music. When they announced a new project for this fall, I was so excited to listen to it. This is one of my favorite bands in all of Christian music because they are so easy to listen to and become swept up into the music, even if it isn't the most inventive thing in the world. However, I've got some bad news: The City Harmonic's new album We Are  is a definite regress for the band. With We Are , the band tries to turn every song into a big anthem, and it just doesn't work. It feels like they tried to give every single track power and instead took the whole album's power away. Granted, the opening track "We Are One" works as a big, bombastic anthem, but that's because it opens the album. The anthem...

Very few bands have struck me the way Ghost Ship did with their debut The Good King . The production was minimalist to a fault, their Americana stylings meshed in a weird but good way with their indie rock base, and the lyrics struck me as oddly theologically rooted. I liked, but couldn't love. Now, two years after their debut, Ghost Ship is back to prove that their debut's success wasn't a fluke with their sophomore effort, Costly . Right away, I can tell that the production quality has greatly improved. While I usually consider this a flaw for folksier music like this, for Ghost Ship it works because of their odd style mash-up of indie rock and Americana. I felt like The Good King  was very weighted throughout because of its hollow production that focused my ears on the lyrics too much. On Costly , not only is the sound blended better, but it's changed quite a bit as well. It's progressed from an indie rock sound with occasional folk elements to something re...

Hillsong UNITED has just released a new album. That sentence alone conjures various reactions, ranging from groaning to scoffing to cheering. Whatever the reaction, a new album from the Aussies is a momentous occassion in worship music. The Hillsong group of bands is arguably the best known and most sung of the major worship artists. Until 2013, most music critics did not want anything to do with any of the Hillsong bands, however, as they typically released what seemed like the same album over and over again. Then came Zion . The release of Zion  changed everything. A formerly complacent band radically challenged the format of the genre which they arguably defined and made for the first time in their career true art. This made it impossible for critics to at least like Zion . It appealed to the hipster crowd musically while still retaining Hillsong's hallmark songwriting. Enter Empires , UNITED's second studio album since transitioning into an indie-ish band. This de...

Wow, 2014 has come to a close. I've really enjoyed this year, especially in film. Over the next several posts, I'll be compiling all the films I've seen from this past year that I didn't review in full. As always, to see how I rank these films relative to each other, take a look at  my IMDB list for this year. Transcendence  - Watch it on cable.  I wanted to see this movie so much when I first heard about it. Christopher Nolan's cinematographer of choice Wally Pfister in my opinion made his films perfect visually. However, Transcendence  never really knows what to say about technology, bouncing back and forth between a the-environment-would-be-better-without-it perspective and a people-would-be-more-social-without-it view. It has such a convoluted plot and characters that fail to have a lot of dimension that all of Pfister's visually amazing direction just gets lost. Grade: 40 Edge of Tomorrow  - Buy it.  This is the most underrated film of th...

Everfound is a new Christian pop/rock group from Russia. These four brothers are set to invade America with their electronically-tinged sound. To help gain more exposure, they joined the Winter Jam tour this year. Their self-titled debut was released last summer, providing us with more insight as to these brothers' sound. Does their debut album break any new ground? Musically, they do not accomplish anything terribly new. They put forth an energetic but familiar CCM pop/rock sound, akin to Sanctus Real. The electronic elements are more prominent than most artists, but they do not yet have their own unique sound. This is their debut album, so they have plenty of time to utilize their amazing potential. That is the one thing that Everfound shows on this album: potential. Nikita's voice is very promising, as he can sound emotional while belting out incredibly high notes. Their anthemic sound will draw many fans early on in their career, giving them more leeway when they make a...

Third Day is perhaps one of the most popular acts in Christian music history. Their southern gospel-rock blend is accessible to fans of both adult contemporary and harder rock, but recently they have stuck to the same sound as their 2008 hit album Revelation . I was hoping for something different from Move but didn't get it. Did Miracle  finally undo their stagnation? In a word, no. They stick to their same brand of southern rock for most of the album. The upside? The word "most." Third Day realizes when the trends begin to change and when they need to slightly tweak their sound, like any well-seasoned band should. Musically, they drift more into ambient rock and add some subtle electronic bass lines in songs like "For the Rest of My Life." Like 2010's Move , they add a harder edge to open the album with "Hit Me Like a Bomb." However, save these songs, they stay for the most part where they are comfortable musically. This is not entirely bad ...

Ever since Michael Tait replaced Peter Furler as the Newsboys' lead singer, I've become far less enamored with the band. After a solid initial release in Born Again and a mediocre worship album in God's Not Dead , I really did not know what to expect from Restart . Musically, I was not surprised at all. The album makes use of the standard modern pop-rock sound that both of Tait's albums have used. Some songs sound better than others, with "Live With Abandon" being the best. Overall, the music rarely obscured the lyrics, which with this style is a mark of some excellence, even if the composition is nothing we have not heard before. It supports the lyrics well; however, this is not necessarily a good thing. Most of the lyrics are somewhat thought-out, but a couple songs stand out for better or for worse. "Live With Abandon" and "We Believe" have excellent lyrics, especially the latter. "We Believe" is a simple yet effective p...