Rick Elias' new album, "jOb" drops one week from today. Rick gave me an advance listen. Here is my review...
Artist: Rick Elias
Title: “jOb”
Specifics: 7 Tracks- Running time: 28:05
Playlist: 1: Do Ya?
2: job
3: When
it all Came Down
4: A
Kind of Brilliance
5: When
We Built This House
6: Help
Thou My Unbelief
7: job,
naked
Some of us listen
to music for distraction. Some listen to be entertained, or to exercise to, or
for inspiration before an athletic event. And some of us listen to music in a
desperate search to find out if anyone has seen
us. We listen to an artist and once in a while –sometimes only once in a
lifetime- we have an epiphany where we understand that we aren’t invisible. For
just a moment, we realize that this road we travel has been traveled before.
Once in a while we find someone who chronicles their journey, and we discover
that it was our journey too. I am one of those people.
Music was always
a definer for me. My life could easily be deciphered by simply rummaging
through my record collection. When I was an angry 19 year-old man, trying to
understand adulthood and missing my friends who’d gone off to college and
grieving, too soon, my childhood and teen years, it was Springsteen’s
“Darkness” record. When I discovered I was a hopeless romantic it was Southside
Johnny. The more I read classic authors and fell deeper and deeper in love with
great wordsmiths, it was Forbert, and Hiatt, and Earle.
And when I had
grown up, and my faith had taken a beating, and I was trying to remain faithful
to Christ and still be truthful about the hurt and pain the world could
viciously inflict, it was Rich Mullins and Rick Elias.
I discovered Rick
Elias quite by accident –although I am sure I would have found him sooner or
later- when he opened for a CCM artist who shall remain nameless. (mainly
because he isn’t worth giving space to) Rick was an unannounced addition to the
show and touring to support his second record for Frontline: “Ten Stories.” He
came out in a black leather jacket, powering through about a half dozen songs
masterfully on a white Fender Strat. His band was impeccable and his
musicianship was superior.
But it was those words...those words.
I had been, by that point in life,
damaged deeply. I had made mistakes that marked my life, and I had discovered
family secrets that scarred me, and I had my heart broken by love, and by the
church. Yet I clung to the belief –albeit barely- that Christ was not entirely
like His Christians, and I picked my way through the mess, and found ropes to
hang onto. Rick Elias was such a lifeline.
Sitting that
night in the Trenton War Memorial, watching this man pouring out passionate,
real, honest words in a soft growl that reminded me of my beloved Springsteen
in every way, I was transfixed. I had spent 22 years trying to understand why I
was so different from the others of like faith. Why my faith wasn’t pretty and
my life wasn’t either. I wondered why I loved Jesus so deeply and yet could
not...I could not reveal that love in
the standard, acceptable ways that others did. Rick Elias noticed me.
He didn’t know
it. We’d not met at that point. But when he wrote his stories of pain, and hurt,
with harrowing honesty, and the brazen chutzpah it takes to dare ask
“Why?”...he’d noticed me. I listened to him tell my story. And I wept because
finally someone was telling it, and that meant maybe someone else was asking
the same questions.
When Rick’s show
ended, I sat there in silence. I could not move for several minutes. when I got
my wits about me I ran back to the merch table to buy anything of his I could
get my hands on.
In one of those
great moments where God grants a prayer before it is asked...I made a
friend. Rick was manning his own table that night and we talked for about 30
minutes. I missed the opening of the headliner and I never noticed. I talked to
Rick about songs, and lyrics and why these things matter. I am sure I gushed a
little. It’s funny because 22 years later, Rick Elias and his wife Linda are
among my dearest friends. The conversations I've had with this wonderful,
quirky, gristly, loving, devoted, integritous man have kept me sane in a world,
and a place where I often don’t fit. I say it freely...I love Rick Elias. He is a brother
and a friend.
I had to give
this background in order to be honest about my review of this record. I am a
fan and I make no bones about that.
Now, to this record....
It’s been about
12 years since Rick has recorded much of his own stuff. His life has been a
roller coaster. The same roller coaster we’ve all been riding. Somehow, though,
when you are an artist, the dips and curves seem exaggerated. People expect
your next great record, and they seldom grasp that you have the same obstacles
everyone else has in pursuing your living and making your art. The answer is to
either give up or sell out. Rick Elias will never sell out. If I know him at
all, he’ll quit writing anything before he’ll produce something formulaic and
expected. I love him for that.
Given the current
landscape of what is called “Christian Music” I can understand his chagrin.
Where does a guy like Elias fit? Who is listening? For my money, the best two
songwriters in the genre were Elias and Mullins. We lost Rich 16 years ago and
Rick went silent not long after. He’s been teaching songwriting, and producing
here and there, and raising his family, and figuring out the rest of his life.
Pretty much what we’ve all been doing.
Rick figured that
life had granted all the great stories and fodder for “Christian” hits it was
going to provide. Who wants to hear about middle aged musicians, and their
grown kids, and their grandchildren? How passionate can we write about the
aches and pains of being 50ish or the demands of being a former musician? Who’s
story is that?
Turns out...a lot of us.
“Job” opens with “Do Ya”, a paean for the broken and battered and
luckless. When Elias sings “I am for, the mad ones. Laughing wild in the night,
while praying for the light, hanging on for dear life” he is speaking for me.
He is telling the story of all of us who have reached that point in life that
“they” call the middle, and who wonder what the heck happened. How did we get
here and what happens next? That he likens the characters in this song to Job
himself is no coincidence. In just the slightest artistic twist, he renders
Job’s trials not a specific permissive act of God to prove to Satan that his
accusations about godly men were false, but rather an act of betrayal. Not
ultimate betrayal –Elias knows his scripture too well for that- but betrayal in
the way it feels when we face devastation. Because, who hasn’t felt like God
has betrayed them when the house begins to crumble? It’s not a matter of
whether we feel that, it’s whether we’ll admit
to feeling it. That...is really what this record is about. That is the voice of
Rick Elias’ “job.”
The lineup continues with "When it all Came Down", a poignant, powerful rocker that tells the story of some of the "downs" in the old line: "Life has it's ups and downs." It's roar comes from it's honesty and it's undercurrent hopefulness that, even when we trip and stumble...we are still moving, and so we're still alive.
"A Kind of Brilliance." follows with lilting beauty that stands as a stark and lovely contrast to the song the precedes it. It's a gentle, somewhat sorrowful tale of love as it grows older and how hearts reshape themselves. It exposes the lies we tell each other -most often not intending to- as our humanity collides daily with those we love the most.
"When we Built This House" might be my personal favorite. It's a lovely, sometimes morose, open ended glimpse into an empty nest. It could be an unnerving insight, but for the feeling that underneath the boredom, monotony, and hesitance about the future...there exists love between the protagonists.
"Help Thou Mine Unbelief" is one of Elias' greatest works. It first appeared on his 2000 album "Prayers of a Ragamuffin" which was the final gathering of Rich Mullins' former band-mates. This is a reworking and it is as breathtaking as it's original incarnation. Given the connection to the rest of this album, it is even more beautiful here. It speaks of the desperate desire of a man who reaches the age when we all ask what, if anything, is left for us in this life. We wear a weathered Faith and we are desperate for God to "Give my heart wings, with visions and dreams, this world cannot steal away" this one line means more to me than almost anything else on this record. Because I say this to God every single day. ...and I wait for the reply.
"jOb, naked" finishes out this wonderful album with another full throttle take on the opening song. It's not exactly the same lyrics, but it's the same theme. It feels as if Rick needed two songs to address the processes he lived out in the development of 'jOb".
The lineup continues with "When it all Came Down", a poignant, powerful rocker that tells the story of some of the "downs" in the old line: "Life has it's ups and downs." It's roar comes from it's honesty and it's undercurrent hopefulness that, even when we trip and stumble...we are still moving, and so we're still alive.
"A Kind of Brilliance." follows with lilting beauty that stands as a stark and lovely contrast to the song the precedes it. It's a gentle, somewhat sorrowful tale of love as it grows older and how hearts reshape themselves. It exposes the lies we tell each other -most often not intending to- as our humanity collides daily with those we love the most.
"When we Built This House" might be my personal favorite. It's a lovely, sometimes morose, open ended glimpse into an empty nest. It could be an unnerving insight, but for the feeling that underneath the boredom, monotony, and hesitance about the future...there exists love between the protagonists.
"Help Thou Mine Unbelief" is one of Elias' greatest works. It first appeared on his 2000 album "Prayers of a Ragamuffin" which was the final gathering of Rich Mullins' former band-mates. This is a reworking and it is as breathtaking as it's original incarnation. Given the connection to the rest of this album, it is even more beautiful here. It speaks of the desperate desire of a man who reaches the age when we all ask what, if anything, is left for us in this life. We wear a weathered Faith and we are desperate for God to "Give my heart wings, with visions and dreams, this world cannot steal away" this one line means more to me than almost anything else on this record. Because I say this to God every single day. ...and I wait for the reply.
"jOb, naked" finishes out this wonderful album with another full throttle take on the opening song. It's not exactly the same lyrics, but it's the same theme. It feels as if Rick needed two songs to address the processes he lived out in the development of 'jOb".
If I had a
complaint it is merely that “job” is too darned short. It’s seven tracks and
just under 30 minutes. But that is, in itself, the beauty. When this record
concludes, you wish there was more of this wonderful music...because make no
mistake, Rick Elias is a masterful musician. You certainly long for more of the
sound, but you understand that the story is told. It doesn't take 12 songs to
explore truth. Not every time. And especially not when the best songwriter in
Christian music is doing the talking.
This record is real. It’s truthful. If your idea of
great music about faith is something that makes your eyes glaze over and your hands
raise to the sky and your body sway like a Dervish, this isn’t your album.
It’s for everyone else...
This record is
for those who have made mistakes. It’s for those who have been the victim of
someone else’s mistakes. It’s for those who have had to say they were sorry.
It’s for those who have lived and laughed and loved and hurt and wounded and
been wounded and dreamed and watched those dreams crash, burn and then sink
into the sea.
It’s for the ones who have had to figure out what happens
next.
We all grow
older. We all struggle with demons. We all hurt someone we love and love
someone who hurt us. We wake up one day, bruised and battered and aching from
slaying so many dragons for so long a time. We wonder if any of this was worth
it and it’s then we realize that merely getting to this point is the real
victory. The really wise ones among us realize that when Paul wrote “His grace
is sufficient for me...” Paul meant that most times sufficiency means “barely
enough” not effusive overflow. Life is beauty and ruin, intermingled. Grace is
the place where we learn to love both.
That’s what this
beautiful, emotional, unforgettable record is. It’s Grace. Written in a code
that the honest grasp, and set to music that bandaged hearts hear better than
those who have been untouched by pain.
“Job” is like
finding a journal at a rest stop on a trail whose destination I understand, but
whose terrain I fear and stumble over. The words inside the weathered book
don’t make the journey any less difficult...but they tell me someone else is up
ahead. He’s making his way slowly through the uncharted darkness. And his words
serve as breadcrumbs for me to follow.
Until we both make it home.
“Job” by Rick Elias Release date 11/12/2013 at
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