Jars of Clay is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific sound or genre. They\u2019ve made ten albums in their time as a band, and not a single one of them sounds alike. But never have they released an album that shows off their musical influences so much as The Long Fall Back To Earth. Traces of 80\u2019s synth bands such as The Cure or INXS and even groups as recent as The Killers can be found everywhere throughout the album.<\/p>\n
Upon first listen, the album doesn\u2019t offer anything truly exciting for the listener, except for the euphoric instrumental intro \u201cThe Long Fall\u201d which bleeds immediately into \u201cWeapons,\u201d and the glorious rush of \u201cHero.\u201d But upon further listens the songs reveal their individual charms. There\u2019s nothing on this album that\u2019s as passionate as Good Monsters, as wickedly funny as If I Left the Zoo and as deeply moving as Much Afraid.<\/p>\n
The album goes beyond normal Christian music \u201cJesus is my boyfriend\u201d clich\u00e9s and instead delves deeper into human relationships that any CCM band in recent memory. Tracks like \u201cCloser\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Stop\u201d make this hugely apparent. Indeed, the title for the album comes from a line in the song \u201cSafe To Land\u201d (which first appeared on the Closer EP in 2008), which describes a broken relationship and offers the image of a plane waiting to land as a metaphor for grace. It\u2019s a moment of breathtaking and heartbreaking beauty that shows why Jars of Clay is leaps and bounds better than any other CCM band making music today.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the album, the band explores ideas of finding solace in music (\u201cHeadphones\u201d), defense of their right to experiment (\u201cScenic Route,\u201d the best track on the album), and add a little mentorship in the form of \u201cBoys (Lesson One)\u201d. All in all, the album is less cohesive than any of their other albums. A lot of the time it sounds like the band is playing it too safe, like on \u201cThere Might Be A Light\u201d and \u201cForgive Me,\u201d while at other times they\u2019re taking full advantage of their creativity (\u201cScenic Route,\u201d \u201cHeart\u201d). It\u2019s useless to say that this album is a new step for Jars of Clay, because every album is a new step for Jars of Clay. And even if this is an average Jars of Clay album, an average Jars of Clay album is better than most other bands best albums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jars of Clay is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific sound or genre. They\u2019ve made ten albums in their time as a band, and not a single one of them sounds alike. But never have they … Continue reading