Music Review #1: Matt Redman "Face Down"

Matt Redman is one of the top Worship leaders and writers in evangelical Christianity, having penned modern classics like "The Heart Of Worship," "Better Is One Day," "Blessed Be Your Name," and "Let Everything That Has Breath."
His latest live worship CD, "Face Down," is the first on Sixsteps Records, the EMI CMG label that boasts a stable of fellow Worship leaders: Chris Tomlin, the David Crowder Band, and Charlie Hall.
Redman recorded "Face Down" live at North Point Community Church in Alphareta, Georgia during the January 2004 Facedown Songwriters Gathering.The duo known as Watermark, Nathan and Christy Nockels, each contributed: Nathan produced, as well as played keys and guitars, while Christy sang backing vocals. Tom Laune (Passion, Michael W. Smith, Nichole Nordeman) mixed the final product in Nashville.
Impressive credentials, but does it work? For criteria, let's look at Dylanographer Michael Gray's assessment of the Bob Dylan gospel song, "Pressing On."
"Pressing On" seems an instant classic of a gospel song, one you can readily imagine being sung in black churches.
And why not white? Whatever Bob Dylan aficionados might feel about his Christian songs, the best of them surely comprise a body of work that brings to contemporary religious song something fresh yet well-grounded in traditional strengths, something passionate and full of an authentic saturation in biblical teaching. Anyone can hear that it wipes the floor with all that awful Pat Boonery ... and those gruesome Age of Aquarius lasers-and-love productions offered to white worshippers over the last thirty years. Dylan's religious work has gravitas."

Gray has given us a strong formula: fresh yet well-grounded in traditional strengths + something passionate + full of an authentic saturation in biblical teaching = gravitas. Few would doubt that the best of Redman's songs over the last several years adhere to these guidelines. Let's apply them to this latest record.

"Facedown" begins with the rollicking "Praise Awaits You," an effective and typical introductory song for a worship set. What makes it stand out is the unusual chords underlying the simple melody. Redman is good at providing a delightful musical twist underneath a melody that meets the worship music requirement that it be easily sung by the average person. (This is something that Jeremy Quillo is becoming adept at as well on songs such as "From The Depths": listen to the unexpected note underneath the lyric in the chorus). Fresh yet well-grounded in traditional strengths? I'd say so.

Cut 2, "Nothing But The Blood" is Redman's ode to the classic Robert Lowry Sunday school hymn, "Nothing But The Blood" (1876). Comparisons are inevitable. Redman is up to it because he isn't afraid to be different in ways that he must be. Lowry's classic was full of perfect rhymes that, in 1876, did not sound trite (flow/ snow/ know) but which would fall into cliche now. Redman starts with a couplet that uses assonant, rather than perfect, rhyme:
Your blood speaks a better word / than all the empty claims I've heard upon this earth.
A captivating line. Surely if he had made himself the slave of perfect rhyme he would have cast aside the truism of this line in search of a closer match for either "word" or "earth," but he is a confident craftsman who knows what must be said.
He does it again in the chorus:
What can wash us pure as snow / welcomed as the friends of God
and he doesn't bother end-rhyming at all in the first couplet of the second verse:
Your cross testifies in grace / Tells of the Father's heart to make a way for us.
Of course, there is an internal assonant rhyme with "grace", "make," and "way."
The song works. It praises God while it teaches us (which is another form of praise to God, since His word instructs us to teach and admonish each other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs).
This same praise/ instruction is evident on "Seeing You"," "Gifted Response," and "Dancing Generation." This is not "Theology Lite," this is authentic saturation in biblical teaching.

"Worthy, You Are Worthy" was cowritten with fellow Worship leader and songwriter extraordinaire Chris Tomlin, who also sings it with Redman on the disc. As such, standards are high.
It is a catchy tune, with three well-crafted verses.
The chorus begins with the simple but effective:
You're worthy / You're worthy / You're worthy / You're worthy to be praised
And then comes:
Forever and a day.
Wow. Did two of the Church's best contemporary songwriters just give us, as the closing line to their collaboration, the ultimate teeny-bopper cliche? Forever and a day? Like, totally.
Now, I'd imagine the songwriting session that produced this went down in a spirit of ironic truth. After all, praising God really is the one thing for which the phrase "forever and a day" makes sense. I can see them deciding that this cliche, used as it is, has been made "fresh" and has the ring of truth to it. It does, but the problem is, they don't sing it with any sense of irony -- it's just full blown, caution-to-the-wind, naked admiration of God. They mean it, which is only bad in the sense that they sing it as if they have no idea how over-used and trite this phrase is.
In spite of my critical outlook, "Worthy, You Are Worthy" swept me away. I listened to it three times in a row while driving yesterday, praising God -- and I, too, lost all sense of kitsch or irony, singing "forever and a day" for all it was worth. Then again, I am a Christian, a continuous outpourer, who, when not divided from God by my own sin, directs his outpouring Godward, as worship. And maybe the hectoring that I could imagine a secular critic, or any thinking nonChristian, would do upon hearing these lyrics, is simply due to "ways of the world" posturing. I could say that the reason we Christians can revel in this kind of lyric is because "God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise."
But though there is truth to that, we are, at all times, to be evangelistic -- even in our corporate expressions of worship. As such, this line is an unfortunate choice. The Jesusfreakhideout.com review of this disc contains the following opinion: "If you dig modern worship, this is your cup o' tea. If not, Matt Redman is certainly not for you ... only those into the modern worship scene need apply. 'Facedown' is a great, albeit exclusive, piece of work." I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of Redman in general, but it certainly fits "Worthy, You Are Worthy." (Of course, even Redman would say that his calling is to the Church, so to call his work exlusive is not really an insult; I would only offer the defence that, in most of his songs, there is a deep theological underpinning that even Christians who aren't into stereotypical modern worship, because of its light theology, would appreciate.)

One great spontaneous chorus and three compelling songs follow, including the title cut, "Face Down." Another strong effort in this trio is "Breathing The Breath," which contains a distillation of an over-riding theme of the album, the doctrine of prevenient grace, which says "before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man." (Tozer, "The Pursuit of God")
The lyric runs:
Every good, perfect gift comes from your kind and gracious heart /
And all we do is give back to you what always has been yours.
Redman hammers this theme home again and again on "Face Down," to penetrating effect. Remember, Redman isn't one of those generic, lesser worship writers who churn out The Gospel Of Good Times, dumbed down to sitcom-level. He's teaching us.

Another strong point on the album is "Mission's Flame." It is so easy to sing praise songs that are really all about us: "God, thank you for giving me stuff. Thank you for healing me. Thank you for blessing me. You are worthy to be praised because of how you've served me." Nothing inherently wrong with these themes, but the church needs more songs like "Mission's Flame," which, along with giving God glory in a direct way, actually inspire the Body of Christ to do the work of Christ:
Let worship be the heart of mission's aim / We're going with a passion for your name
We're going for we care about your praise / Send us out ....

The disc closes with a forgetable Redman song, "If I Have Not Love." The chorus begins:
This is a love song / this is a love song / Jesus a love song to you ....
He's breaking the cardinal rule of creative writing: "Show, don't tell."
Write a love song to Jesus, not just something that says "This is a love song to Jesus." We'll know it when we hear it, and more so, Jesus will. No need to explain what you're trying to do with your lyrics, just do it. Redman isn't the first Christian writer to fall into the "use the lyrics to tell what I want the lyrics to accomplish" pitfall ... far from it. Here's Bruce Carroll, a CCM darling of the mid-to-late 80's:
This is a song for You / just to try and show You how I feel.
Thank you for showing me that Your's is the love that is real.
In fact, writers of all styles and persuasions have done this on occasion. It's one of those clever tricks that works if it is rarely used, but not when everybody does it. Kind of like when Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd began addressing the viewer directly on "Moonlighting," or those infamous gun-dodges in The Matrix. Tons of imitations followed, and now the effect is cliched.

Nevertheless, "Face Down" succeeds in its aim to provide a true expression of worship. There are no "bad" songs, and the good far outweighs the mundane. There are certainly several examples of the kind of writing that has "gravitas," and fulfills the formula for doing so that Gray recommends. This collection is not a leap forward for Redman, but it is a steady journey along the path that is bringing the Church new music that will last, music that matters.