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What can I say? The Christian rocker and cult superhero Daniel Smith has finally formed a band large enough to be a cult; an all around religious experience. The new album ships is so good it's biblical. The music is infectious and I have submitted completely; it's time for me to get evangelical. After months of owning the cd I have finally resolved it's too good not to tell you about.
Let's start with the composition of the band; it's quirky and seems to have, unfortunately, drawn more attention than the music itself in a lot of reviews. To cut to the chase; urban legend claims there are 40 players, in actuality there are 20 musicians, including the longtime Barbelith favorite Sufjan Stevens and longtime Dovetailed favorite Deerhoof.
As a spectacle they hold your attention; an already unusual stage presence (20 members) is compounded by a love of matching costumes and Smith's propensity to come on stage dressed as a ten foot tall tree. His voice is strange, but it works; it allows him to delve even deeper into untested waters, to do even more things that other musicians just can't.
Daniel Smith is unabashedly Christian; a trait which when presented musically normally makes me squirm. Admittedly in some of his older recordings it was lyrically a bit too much, but he has always managed to make up for the excessive god loving with musical ingenuity and an unfaltering fervor for what he is doing.
The new album has a very different feel; it is far less overtly Christian and feels considerably more mature in terms of its message. To me this is more an album about religious doubt as opposed to his usual fare of religious celebration; even the title itself endorses this view, “ships” is a vehicle to carry Smith across the tumultuous oceans of doubt which threaten him. Listening to the album from start to finish is a journey in itself.
Musically the group are masters of using dissonance and consonance to wonderful effect; the songs are unpredictable but always come together just in time for another crescendo that rises out of the chaos like a pillar of awesome. Brief respites, surprise key changes, mood swings; the sound is often big and dense but will, at the drop of a hat, cut down to nothing but vocals and sparse guitar. Overall it is beautiful, nebulous and colourful.
Danielson is clearly not for everyone; this album is easier on the ears than Smith's other works but Ships is still, at its core, a cult album.
So there we have it, I have introduced Danielson; those of you that haven't heard Ships need to give it a listen. To those that have; what did you think?
Not the best song on the album, but the only one I can find to stream – “Did I step on your trumpet” |
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