music review: the ringing bell by derek webb

April 5, 2007

Ding dong, the truth isn’t dead.

Or at least telling the truth isn’t dead. But then, if you’re Derek Webb, truth-telling has become a way of life by way of song. Even if they are hard truths to swallow.

Derek Webb’s fourth full-length studio album, The Ringing Bell, a la the Rubber Soul era, hit in a unique way this week. On his website, you could pre-order a deluxe CD edition of Derek’s new record and receive a full digital download immediately. Included in the pre-order was a graphic novel by the same name of the record. All for the price of $20. Ladies and gents, welcome to the future of the record industry. It telephone lines over post office trucks. It’s digital over the physical.

The Ringing Bell opens with the trippy, stripped-down and hipper Maroon 5-like, “The End,” complemented with the incomparable Derek downstroke, clocking in at 1:36.

More of an introduction, “The End” slides effortlessly into the first full-length track “The Very End.” This Lennon-fused, saloon jangler starts with the line “This is a murder trial…” And Webb is on the stand. In his pithy way, Webb speaks of his devotion to his God because of God’s devotion to him. “You are the anti-curse/death going in reverse/I’ll love you ’til the very end.”

Webb lets it hang out with a riotous “My Shorona” opening guitar riff in “A Love That’s Stronger Than Our Fear.” He speaks of how the lack of persecution in the West’s has potential to cause us to fall into an evangelical complacency. “What would you do/if someone put a gun to your head/and asked you to tell a lie?” It is the antithesis of W. Smith’s Columbine tribute “This is Your Time.” Same sentiment, way different angle.

“I Wanna Marry You All Over” is a tight-drummed, close-miked love song for Sandra. Webb pines for the opportunity to court and wed her all over, right down to meeting her parents. Ouch! I can’t help but feel there is a shadow here: Jesus sanctifying us, his bride, at all costs. Hmmm….

“You never asked me to save anyone/not in whole or in part/like I was some kind of Holy Ghost/come to change their hearts” starts the 2nd verse of Webb’s Shins-flavored “I Don’t Want to Fight.” Over the rolling snare, this lyric echoes the voice of a former theological ‘boxer’ who is throwing in the towel, trading combat for community.

Stealing a page from the Lennon/McCartney-penned “Day Tripper,” Webb speaks to his listeners as an experienced elder in “Name.” “Don’t be satisfied when someone sums you up with just one word…” This could only come from a man who has fended off a few of these categories himself.

“I For an I” continues down the Liverpool trail with strings George Martin would snuggle up to and with a message we all should do more than just eavesdrop in on: there’s no “I” in brotherhood. Much like “I Don’t Want to Fight,” the theme of this song shows the futility in the war of words. You end up on your ironic island, having won the war but completely losing what satisfies the soul.

The poppier, adult alt “Can’t Be Without You” is reminiscent of a song straight off of Caedmon’s Long Line of Leavers [btw, my favorite CC album].

And yes, here is your perfunctory politically-charged anthem on the album: “A Savior on Capitol Hill.” Railing on the crookedness of D.C., Webb’s bluesy rendention reminds us that politics has turned into animal that needs tamed.

Webb closes the album with his sparsest and most powerful song on the album, “This Too Shall Be Made Right.” With just his 5-string and his voice, he lets out a quiet Ecclesiastes 3 roar. In time, the good and the bad must transpire, but at the end stands a Perfecter. And therein lies our hopeful expectancy.

[HT: Shaun Groves]

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