music review III: The Face of Love & 97.7FM

Sanctus Real’s previous album “Fight the Tide” is to me an example of what I think shows the true reason why electric guitars were created. If pure noise is ever a beautiful thing (which I believe it can be) “Fight the Tide” captures that beauty. A while ago Banke$ wrote something about orchestra instruments being what makes a rock song good--which I agree. But Sanctus Real does so well with guitars that I’d have to say it’s their skill with the guitars that make the music in “Fight the Tide” sound so cool. It now stands just below my favorite albums of all time which are Jesus Adrian’s “El Aire De Tu Casa” and Mercy Me’s Christmas album (yes, even in October).

But in Sanctus Real’s latest album “The Face of Love” they disappointed me greatly. I got the CD because the first song is really good (the one playing now). After that there are a couple okay songs but they still lacked the quality of their previous album. Their climatic choruses, catchy melodies, beautiful blend of distortion, and cool background vocals can only be found in one of their new songs. Instead of their thick, juicy, meaty, chunky, guitar sound that I had come to love, they’ve begun to experiment with high-pitched, screechy distortion. Unlike in “Tide” the cymbals in “Face” often drown out the meatyness that is there. Also, another thing that I love about “Tide” is the background vocals. In “Face” their lead vocalist seems to have decided that his voice is good enough to sing all their songs on his own. Don’t get me wrong: the guy has a good voice, it just shouldn’t be alone. Finally, the words for most of the choruses are very repetitive therefore making the songs old and boring very quickly. As far as the words go, they did a great job at keeping it convicting and original and poetic. But a good album must have the right combination of both lyrics and music.

Sure, they sort of have some excuses. They had a few deaths in their family and their main guitarist decided to leave the band. So now they're with a new guitarist. It bugs me that they went ahead and made an album when they weren't ready and I went ahead and bought it. Uhg!

It’s like they’ve become just a standard band on 97.7FM here in Lafayette. Don’t get me wrong--about 30% of the songs on 97.7 are fairly good (still not the best), but the rest just seem unorganized, unrehearsed, and uncreative. This means that you are much more likely to catch a song of horrible quality and second-rate talent than to get the sort-of-good stuff. It’s kind of sad that we have like 5 Christian radio stations here in Lafayette and the one that has the most contemporary stuff has cheap stuff and a-little-better-than-cheap stuff. I mean, how much money, time, and energy does it cost a guy to have an electric guitar and sing some lyrics to some repetitive cords? I mean really, why are you people wasting your time? Let’s see some talent! Why don’t most contemporary artists at least try to add some variety and uniqueness to their band? Don’t they want to make a big impression to their world? Then why does it seem they aren’t trying very hard at all?

Anyway, all that to say that Christian artists need to make sure they are producing stuff that reflects better their ability and cause. Contemporary music should reveal more of that beauty in music that has yet to be discovered! It’s not like every single piece of good music has already been written! The study of music is never ending! Do something unique! And work hard at it! It’s not like I have already conquered the challenges of being original but God didn’t give us these talents so that we could be second-rate. He wants excellence.

Anyway, I've got a really good post that I'll have to write within the next few months about rock music that will be very interesting!