Review: Live: Deconstructing the American Dream - The Cobalt Season

We all have to, at some point, stop and acknowledge the questions that start to nag at our hearts and minds regarding our world and our faith. For Ryan and Holly Sharp, the husband and wife team who comprise The Cobalt Season, this time came leading into the fall of 2005. Having endured hardship within some musical endeavors, serving selflessly as impromptu pastors, and contributing to the grassroots movement of Emergent, the Sharp's found themselves at a crossroad of questions and decisions. Disgruntled with the American notions of materialism and Christianity, the two set forth on a pilgrimage, traveling from town to town relying upon the hospitality of old and new friends as well as the grace of God to see them through, searching for answers and insight into the questions they found themselves asking.

Live: Deconstructing the American Dream is a snapshot into that journey. Many of the songs crafted just prior to the journey and others composed along the road, the album is an honest reflection of a searching heart. Primarily supported by acoustic guitar, and harmony vocals from wife, Holly, in true singer/songwriter style, Ryan offers up these tunes with an affecting delivery, his voice carrying just a dash of country twang.

Lyrically, the seventeen-track album deals with a variety of themes. Opening track, "Begin Again", is a cry for direction and hope. Songs like "American Empire" and "The Bottom Line" offer up discontent regarding the veiled dangers of the so-called American dream. In the former, Sharp sings:

Well damn this American Empire
We all overpaid to be sure I know it
But even still
All these needs and wants and toys and taunts
They follow me everywhere
Everywhere