Review: B Collision - the David Crowder Band

Okay, I'll say it. It's not that it's not been said before, because it has. But, it's true and it deserves saying again. Here goes: David Crowder is the most creative and innovative person working within the contemporary Christian music industry. There, it's been said. Ever since his virtually unheralded jump onto the scene years ago with All I Can Say, Crowder has continued to dazzle crowds and sell albums.

Certainly, it hasn't hurt that the David Crowder Band is a part of the Passion movement or that Dave is just a real snappy dresser. But, all in all, it's the music that's getting them the props. Plus they've been consistent in throwing more and more music to their adoring fans. First, it was The Lime CD, featuring live cuts and a few bonuses, then, Sunsets and Sushi, an album that was basically an electronica experiment that actually worked. And these are just the fillers in between the studio albums!

Well, now we find ourselves yet again at that point "between albums" and Crowder & Co. are offering us, B Collision: The Eschatology of Bluegrass. A lot has happened between the release of the A and B Collisions (The band's pastor and good friend, Kyle Lake, was electrocuted in a freak accident while baptizing someone late last October) and the album reflects that.

Drawing most of its seven tracks from A Collision, the album reinvents them in a quasi-acoustic style. The opening track, not really a song but more like an opening prayer of sorts, starts it off. In "I've Had Enough," Crowder sings:

I've had enough
To break me in two
To tear me apart
What am I to do?

This prayer is followed with a "B Variant" of both "A Beautiful Collision" and "Wholly Yours". Both songs benefit from the stripped down arrangement and focus the listener on the lyrics even more than before--lyrics that deal with our pain, uncertainty, and doubt that is swallowed up and soothed by the grace of God.