Artist: Tennis
Album: Yours Conditionally
Year: 2017
Grade: B
In Brief: Tennis has a laid-back, breezy, sunny sort of indie pop style that feels like a less gloomy, more innocent Beach House. It’s an easy sound to fall in love with, though the lack of variance in tone and tempo can start to get repetitive toward the album’s end.
Artist: Gungor
Album: One Wild Life: Body
Year: 2016
Grade: B
In Brief: While Soul still has the highest concentration of my personal favorite songs from the One Wild Life trilogy, the sheer ambition of Body and the stylistic ground covered here is hard to ignore. It’s a brave, albeit imperfect and somewhat awkwardly paced, album from a band that continues to challenge the notion of what “Christian music” should be about.
Artist: Gungor
Album: One Wild Life: Spirit
Year: 2016
Grade: B-
In Brief: While more upbeat and rhythmic than its predecessor Soul, Gungor stumbles slightly in the lyrics department here by being a little too vague about their spirituality at times while being a little too didactic when they get more specific. I don’t disagree with anything they’ve got to say here; I just question whether this is the best way to present these thoughts in musical form.
Artist: Gungor
Album: One Wild Life: Soul
Year: 2015
Grade: B
In Brief: At times immediate and delightful, and at times slow, cerebral and perplexing, the opening chapter in Gungor’s new trilogy of albums celebrates the gift of life and the sense of loving unity that should be felt when Christians are at their best, at times coming back around to embrace the “contemporary worship” tag we once applied to their music, while still challenging the norms of that genre in fascinating ways.
Artist: Katie Herzig
Album: Walk Through Walls
Year: 2014
Grade: A-
In Brief: Katie has done it again! I expected a return to more acoustic music after the colorful sonic adventures of The Waking Sleep, but instead she’s upped the ante with her most electronic – and perhaps her most compellingly human – album to date.
Artist: Five Iron Frenzy
Album: Engine of a Million Plots
Year: 2013
Grade: A-
In Brief: A triumphant comeback for a band who had one heck of a legacy to live up to. Where their previous records were mostly hit-and-miss, this one keeps delivering the goods all the way through.
Artist: Gungor
Album: I Am Mountain
Year: 2013
Grade: B
In Brief: If Ghosts Upon the Earth was a total game-changer for Gungor, then I Am Mountain may be a completely different sport. It throws a monkey wrench into nearly everything you thought you knew about them. With candid expressions of doubt and putting one’s faith in the wrong things, and one heck of a schizophrenic musical approach, the duo has already alienated a lot of “Christian music” fans. But ultimately, their brave choice to be honest instead of pandering to an audience results in a fascinating, albeit somewhat uneven, record that reminds us what lies at the axiomatic “ground floor” of our system of beliefs.
