A Way to See In The Dark by Jason Gray

The best time in any artist’s career is the period just after they produce a landmark album. Music journalists hail it as a masterwork. Radio stations clamor to add the latest single to the playlist. And devotees load the message boards and fan sites with seemingly endless streams of praise. The worst time in any artist’s career, on the other hand, is the very moment they realize that they’ll either have to replicate that success or incur the inevitable backlash from critics and naysayers all too eager to label the just-produced opus a one-shot phenomenon. Jason Gray’s Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue, was just such a high-water mark. A thought-provoking, consummately-performed collection of folk and pop tunes, the 2009 release rightly garnered the talented Minnesota native near-universal accolades, with some listeners going so far as to label him the heir apparent to Stephen Curtis Chapman.

Fans who have been holding their breath ever since Untrue hit the streets will be elated to know that the better part of the new effort follows closely in its imposing footsteps. The leadoff track, “Remind Me Who I Am,” is probably the most likely successor to “More Like Falling In Love,” the leadoff single from Untrue, thanks to its sunny pop sensibility and simple, yet profound, lyrics. The insistent marching beat of “No Thief Like Fear,” on the other hand, lends a certain starkness to the song’s gripping dissertation on timidity. The superbly-crafted folk-pop number, “Without Running Away” (Pain’s an addiction/ I’m afraid to leave it behind/ I’d rather be free of the burden/ Of the living that hoping requires) makes a surprisingly compelling case for its unlikely treatise on hope as an encumbrance. And the musical portion of the absolutely transcendent “Nothing Is Wasted” (Every tear you cry/ Will seed the ground/ Where joy will grow/ It’s from the deepest wounds/ That beauty finds a place to bloom) seems to float like a feather atop the words Gray sings.

Gray has often been called Christian music’s best-kept secret, and one has to wonder if he hasn’t deliberately tried to shed that tag with his latest batch of compositions. Nowhere is this more evident than on cuts like “Good to be Alive” and “The End of Me,” which, although not nearly bad by any means, sound just about like every other song on the Christian Hit Radio Top 40 charts. The wording of other tracks, such as “Good to be Alive” (I wanna live like there’s no tomorrow/ Love like I’m on borrowed time/ It’s good to be alive) and the title cut (I’ll reach for your hand in the night/ When the shadows swallow the light), pales in comparison to the insight and creativity that informed virtually the sum total of Untrue.

Gray’s intermittent concessions to pop radio do generate at least one or two bona fide pearls. “Fear Is Easy, Love Is Hard” (Peace could come at quite a cost/ So we won’t build a bridge across) is a pleasantly engaging detour into what might be considered contemporary country territory. In the same way, the attention-grabbing theme of “The Sound of Our Breathing” (The name of God/ Is the sound of our breathing/ Hallelujahs arise/ On the wings of our hearts beating), which equates our very existence to an act of praise, helps to compensate for its slightly prototypical musical section. And all of the tracks on the album, from the most adventurous to the most average, are outfitted with Gray’s characteristically rich and shimmering production sensibility that inevitably draws those who hear them into their grooves.

Its occasional foibles notwithstanding, given the fact that the songs on Dark arguably fit together into a more cohesive whole than those on Untrue, some listeners may actually prefer the new project over its predecessor – in much the same way that many a music lover favors A Hard Day’s Night over Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. And while it admittedly falls just shy of the Untrue record in terms of lyrical consistency and musical eclecticism, See in the Dark is still, by and large, one of the most impressive releases by a Christian pop artist thus far this year.

Bert Gangl was formally introduced to the wonderful world of Christian music by his baby brother as the two were winding their way through Western Tennessee in the family automobile. Ever intent on proving that not all Christian artists were knock-offs of their mainstream counterparts, the younger Gangl duly inserted his newly-purchased copy of White Heart's Freedom into the waiting car tape player and the rest, as they say, is history. In the twenty years that have transpired since that time, Bert has amassed a sizeable CCM album collection of his own and has gone on to write reviews for a range of music-related sites including ChristRock , The Phantom Tollbooth, inReview and The All-Music Guide. He currently resides in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife and daughter.