Something old

I've been catching up with some old albums that I missed out on first time around.

The Call are one of my favourite band's but I'd never heard their final album Heaven and Back. Compared with the anguish of some of their work it is a mellow, ruminative affair but none the worse for that. Lead singer and songwriter Michael Been is a great lyricist with the gift of asking simple but profound questions, as in these lines from become america:

"When will the killing stop?
When the last child has dropped?
How long must mothers' tears
rain down on streets of fear?
When will the home we love
mean justice for everyone?
When will America become America?"

Gary Cherone, ex Extreme lead singer, after a brief sojourn with Van Halem that resulted in Van Halem III recorded an excellent album under the moniker of Tribe of Judah. Exit Elvis is industrial rock with heavy riffs, synthesised vocals and some standout melodies. It stands alongside Extreme's Pornograffiti for its ironic expose of the mores of contemporary America. Check out, for example, My Utopia:

"desolatemple sits
high on a pedestal
exalting a royal subjective
postulate piety
me myself idolatry
hallowed be my name
from womb to tomb
the placenta of attention
depravity begotten not made
immaculate presumption
the world revolves around
random points of reference
a pontificate pilot
in a short retort
his theory of relatives
while freedom chooses
autonomy deludes
absolute power corroborates
MY UTOPIA."

Less biting and more anthemic is Scott Stapp's The Great Divide. Here the ex Creed lead singer feels able to write more openly about his faith, particularly on the title track where he celebrates the freedom that he has found, through his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in escaping the great divide between humanity and God:

"You have ...
wrapped your loving arms 'round me,
and with your love I'll overcome.
You have ...
given unselfishly,
kept me from ...
falling ... falling ...
everywhere but on my knees!

You set me free!
To live my life ...
You became my reason to survive the great divide ...
you set me free!"