Thursday, June 01, 2006

A Small Rave About a Musical Discovery

I'm not much of a "pop" person, and I get bored with the consistently anthemic pop sound of popular Christian music. However, I have to make an exception with Starfield's new release, "Beauty In The Broken".

I discovered Starfield a couple years ago when they did a cover of U2's "40" for the Africa benefit CD "In The Name Of Love", an album of U2 songs covered by different Christian artists. I'm a big U2 fan, but I still like their version better than the original. So when I saw they had a knew CD out, I decided to take a chance.

Since then I've become a fan. Their songs are loaded with "infectious hooks" and "soaring soundscapes". Lead singer Tim Neufeld can hit the high notes without sounding operatic or feminine, and the lyrics are original and uplifting, with relatively few worship clichés. (e.g. You are worthy of our praise, I lay down my life, etc.) Highlight tracks include The Hand That Holds The World, Captivate, Love Is The Reversal, Shipreck, and the rest of the songs on the CD. I highly recommend it. This band might could be huge.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

Hmm...I've never heard of them.

James Austin said...

It's only their second album. They're considered primarily a worship band; Chris Tomlin makes an appearance on one of the tracks.