Album Review: David Crowder* Band - Oh For Joy

It's hard to imagine that this is the second-to-last DC*B album.  That this is the second-to-last time I will freshly sample the awsomesauce that is the Crowder band.  That it's almost done.

While we wait for the band's magnum opus, the upcoming Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys]), the boys from Waco have given us a little Christmas present in the form of Oh For Joy. 

There are a couple of must-have Crowder albums - notably A Collision, Remedy Club Tour and Sunsets and Sushi - and this is one of them.  A full-on Christmas album!  Awesome.

The amazing thing about this record - which so many Christmas records lack - is how true the band stays to the spirit of these songs; the dignity and honor they bring to this sometimes solemn, sometimes powerful music. "Joy to the World" is pure worship, and David's plaintive voice really leads you to a joyful place.  "The First Noel" is equally beautiful - acoustic guitar and violin bringing the mellow tune to a place it seldom goes anymore.  One song that does have a very "Crowder-like" twist is "Angels We Have Heard on High," done as a bluegrass number complete with banjo and fiddle.  Dave hold off on the "Gloria in excelsis Deo" lyric until the end, when you've almost forgotten about it.  "O Come, O Come Emmanuel is hauntingly beautiful, building to an epic crescendo of "Rejoice!"

Right then, the album goes smoothly from studio to live, without skipping a beat.  "O Holy Night" is one of my favorite songs, and this is now my favorite rendition, with a lovely acoustic accompaniment. The same goes for "Silent Night," treated with wonderful dignity and beauty.

Finally, in a truly epic ending, Dave gives a short comment on the twelve days of Christmas, and the band launches into a note-perfect rendition of the Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Carol of the Bells (Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24).

The band may be moving onto other things, but this album is destined to be a standard for a long time to come.  A fitting offering for their penultimate album, and a Christmas record that brings honor and solemnity back to the genre.


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