Peterson’s found his niche and he’s mostly comfortable with it, so you’d be forgiven for picking up that warm, “old friend” vibe as he begins to strum his acoustic guitar and tell various stories that lead to sometimes obvious metaphors about the Christian faith, and assuming there’s nothing more to it. II was a good comeback reminiscent of his debut in many ways, but the slow-growing goodness of last year’s Counting Stars is what made me realize, after many months of deliberation, that I was giving Peterson the short shrift by taking a break from reviewing his albums for so long.Īn initial listen to Counting Stars might not reveal a whole lot new going on at first. It took two more albums for me to really come back into the fold – 2008’s Resurrection Letters, Vol. It was his weakest record and it was where I started to lose interest. Was he going to go the Bebo Norman route and try more of a pop approach that might leave a few of the folk purists in the dust? 2005’s The Far Country seemed to suggest that. As Peterson’s ad-hoc “band”, comprised of his wife Jamie Peterson and multi-instrumentalist Gabe Scott, effectively disbanded after the next few records, he began to take more of a “communal” approach, working with different songwriters and instrumentalists to help flesh out his vision, which led to perhaps his most accomplished album, 2004’s Behold the Lamb of God, but which also led to a bit of inconsistency in terms of focus. There was something about his everyman approach to Christian music, since he could pen a metaphor better than a lot of the songwriters I was hearing on the subdued end of the CCM scale at the time, and even if his approach was overly precious at times, it always felt genuine, like he was just recounting an interesting anecdote that someone told him one day while the two of you were sitting down for coffee. At the time I think my musical tastes were just starting to turn a corner and to really appreciate the “lush acoustic” side of Christian music, and Peterson came along, his down-to-earth performances all unassuming and uncomplicated, yet richly layered with the occasional bit of Celtic or bluegrass flair. I had practically made him out to be the next Rich Mullins. Just look at the first time I reviewed one of the guy’s albums, when Carried Along was released over a decade ago. I used to vouch for Andrew Peterson as if he were one of my musical soulmates or something. In Brief: Takes some time to get into, but ultimately it’s one of Andrew Peterson’s best, up there with Carried Along.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |