Carolyn Arends' first album I Can Hear You was a mostly acoustic set that recalled the work of mainstream pop artists (and fellow Canadians) like Alanis Morrissette and Sara McLachlan. And it came out just after her song "Love Will," recorded by contemporary Christian country artist Michael James, won a Gospel Music Association Dove award in 1995 for country song of the year. So, Arends is easily pigeonholed as a country-influenced folkie from the frozen north, right?
Wrong.
Just listen to Feel Free, her second album for Reunion Records. The acoustic pop of her first record has evolved into a more aggressive sound. Melodic pop and aggressive rock have been laid over the acoustic base, providing a better backdrop for Arends' voice and lyrics.
Drawing on sources ranging from songwriters Mark Heard and Rich Mullins to Christian authors like C.S. Lewis, Frederick Buechner, Thomas Merton, and Madeleine L'Engle, Arends writes songs that often rely on whimsy and metaphors to gently drive home simple Christian truths.
She says the new record's sound -- which she calls, "folk meets rock head-on and nobody gets hurt" -- was defined by the material. "The new songs just seemed to want to rock a little more!" she says, crediting it to having put together a band to tour after releasing her first album and enjoying the fun process of creating music with a band in the rehearsals.
The Feel Free title track rocks, as does the very Beatles-esque "Big Deal," with its layered vocals and distorted music carrying a vital message of forging ahead with life despite fear of what other people might think or say, or obstacles put in one's way.
"Last Thursday (Call Me Crazy)" describes a debate over the existence of God and the reality of Christianity between a believer and a New Age-oriented friend, but Arends' touch is gentle rather than preachy.
Arends' acoustic tendency surfaces on "Good Thing Going," a love song to her husband of seven years, and "There You Are," which acknowledges God's presence all around us even as we continue to search for a sign from Him. Arends returns to a similar theme on "Do We Dare," a song about how the mystical presence of God finds ways to force itself through the clouds of our mundane everyday lives.
"There are certain experiences that trigger an awareness in even the most unbelieving heart that there is a greater reality," Arends says, "a realm beyond this earthly existence that we are meant to know."
It is, perhaps, the best-written song on the album, pointing listeners toward being open to experiencing God at a more unfathomable, mystical level than the ordinary.
"When you've grown up in the church as I have, the Good News can seem like old news. But of course, nothing could really be further from the truth," she says. "God is revealing himself to us in new and miraculous ways every day and the challenge is simply to document our experiences of him in language that is as fresh and compelling and relatable as we can muster. Because God himself is fresh and compelling and relatable in ways we can't begin to describe."
Feel free to laugh
or cry, feel free
to wonder why.
Feel free to dance
or grieve, you are
safe when you're
with me.
Bill Hobbs is a music reviewer in Nashville, TN.
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