By: James Southworth
Rating: 1/5 Stars
Just a little over a month ago, I wrote a commentary about the rise and fall of worship/CCM. It seemed a lot of people agreed with me, and the post even got more views than what I usually get (which I'm legitimately happy about, because I was proud of the work I did on it). It's sort of ironic that, only a couple of weeks later, Jesus Culture released a new album. I've criticized artists like Chris Tomlin and Hillsong Young and Free for adhering to the generic norms of "worship music". But, for all the criticisms I have for them, Jesus Culture is even worse. In fact, I would easily dub them as the worst worship band I've ever listened to. They come out with new music every single year, and pretty much no album sounds distinguishable from the other. Last year's album "Love Has a Name" was one of the worst releases I heard in 2017. I went into this album holding out a small modicum of hope that maybe, just maybe, JC had actually done something interesting with their sound for the new album "Living With a Fire". The album title sounded cool, and the cover was intriguingly minimalist.
Any small bits of hope I had were instantly shredded to pieces within the first couple of tracks on this album. I can't even write this review in my typical format (naming my favorite and least favorite songs in separate paragraphs), just because there's hardly anything to say about individual tracks on here. If I were to go track by track on this album, it would be like I was repeating myself. The redeemable moments in this release are very sparse. "Freedom" only works because it's the one moment on this album that feels driving and upbeat. Kim-Walker Smith actually has some passion in her vocals, and you can tell the live audience are enjoying themselves. "Yes and Amen" is a worship song I've heard many times before, but I guess JC's try at it works decently enough. "Beautiful Day" is probably the best song on the album, as the shortest one. It actually has a nice structure to it, and doesn't feel like it goes on for needlessly long. The guitars and drums even have a significant presence. But none of these "good" tracks can remotely equate for all the awful stuff that appears in this album. For one, this release is over 90 minutes long. There are only 14 tracks, so yes, that does unfortunately mean some of the songs are incredibly long-winded. Besides one 4-minute long track, the shortest amount of run time on a song here is 5:27. Many, many tracks hit the 6-7 minute mark, some are 8-9 minutes, and there is even one song that is 12. Freaking. Minutes. Long. If there were some actual content in these tracks, then the run times could be justified. But Jesus Culture is no Falling Up. It was often times torturous to listen to this album from front to back. The band repeats the choruses to the point where they all lose meaning. They try to make every song sound epic by building to an instrumental climax in pretty much every song. It becomes very old very quick.
The biggest problem this release has is that its worship feels forced, and sometimes borders on heresy. I was shocked at how many lyrics here seemed to relate to the prosperity gospel. Like I mentioned in my commentary on CCM, the problem I have with so much of worship is that the praise seems to be for what God can do for us, rather than what we can do for him. Just look at "Anointing" for one of the most uncomfortable examples of this. Vocalist Chris Quilala sings "Holy Spirit, come down/I need You now/In everything, I need Your anointing/Fill me, move in Your power". One could argue that these lyrics are an implicated prayer towards God. But to me, they feel more like a demand. Like we inherently deserve these things. The thing is, we don't deserve any of it. But the song never once acknowledges this. It feels oddly disillusioned, like everything God does is solely in context of only our collective relationships with him. This is a comfortable sentiment. What if God doesn't always reveal himself in the ways we want him to? It just feels selfish to me. Like so much of modern worship, it's clear to me that most of these songs are more trying to exude an emotion rather than pointing out truths about who God is. Now, one could argue that some of the Psalms are emotional rather than theological, but at least the Psalms felt like they were actively conversing with God. I just can't get past the whole concert vibe of this album, and the fact that the band attempts to bring emotion out by having extreme climactic moments within the musical department. It feels fabricated rather than legitimate. There are these moments where it seems like the vocalists are improvising what they're singing out loud. That's clearly what they're trying to get listeners to believe. But all of these "improvisational" moments still felt very planned. And more often than not, it felt like these times were more so for the vocalists to show off their vocal range. It just made me sick to my stomach, as it was so blatantly obvious to me.
Even more lacking than in the lyrical department is the musical variation. Like so much of CCM today, Jesus Culture infuses a huge electronic sound with some muted guitar work, piano, and drums. Pretty much every song plays out in similar ways. They start off as soft and simplistic with a piano playing. Then the vocalist comes in and sings the verses, the gets everyone in the audience to sing the chorus with them. Eventually the guitars and drums start to come in, and then after a few more over repetitions of the chorus, we get to the bridges. Most of the songs here have more than one bridge, and all the bridges are repeating essentially the same safe, happy go lucky sentiments about God. Finally there's this instrumental buildup and climax that is clearly manufactured to make the listener feel like something "spiritual" is happening. I'm not going to deny that music can take someone to a spiritual place. But when the same musical movements are done over and over again, it feels manipulative. It's like Jesus Culture is training their audience to when the buildup is happening, to say in their heads "Ok, now this is the time when we get truly spiritual, when God is actually in the room!". Worship should be, in part, an emotional experience. But when it's a type of experience that is done over and over again, it begins to ring false. The vocalists in this group are all very annoying in my opinion. So often, they're making unnecessary vocal improvisations, reaching vocal heights that most normal people will not be able to sing along to. Sometimes, in between verses, a vocalist will let out a little laugh. I couldn't help but cringe at this, as it once again feels forced, and part of the machine of a manufactured worship experience. Kim Walker-Smith is particularly fitting of this criteria, as she does some of the most obnoxious vocal improvisations I've ever heard. I will forever and always be ticked off by worship "leaders" who are more just trying to show how good of a singer they are versus actually leading a audience in worship. Even when the vocalists are showing off, none of them are particularly incredible singers. They feel as indistinguishable as any other worship super group.
This group's name feels unfitting to me. "Jesus Culture". Shouldn't a name like that imply that we as a collective Christian culture embrace all the truths about Jesus, even the ones that are harder for us to reconcile? This band says "no". Truths about Jesus can simply be drawn out in comfortable concepts. He is just vague and acceptable sentiments. He is more a feeling than he is a person. What a horrible way to approach talking about God. It's no wonder that so many from the outside and even within our belief system actively disdain mainstream Christian music. So much of worship is afraid to address anything that is remotely dangerous or risk taking. The only thing we like to talk about now is how God constantly brings good into our lives. What about grappling with loss? What about the times when God doesn't answer us in the way we expect? But no, that'd be too hard for a band like JC. I have given this band way too many chances. I am done with them. I don't really have anything against you if you listen to this group, but I just hope you listen to other things as well. Jesus Culture puts Christians in a bubble where they can stay within their easily digestible beliefs about God. This needs to stop.
Favorite Songs: "Beautiful Day", "Freedom"
Least Favorite Songs: "Anointed", "Defender", "How Amazing", "Center of Your Love", "Move", "Not Afraid"
No comments:
Post a Comment