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Last Tuesday the David Crowder Band released its new CD called “Church Music.” I must say, it’s very different, even for DCB. Crowder has penned some great worship songs in recent years, although only a small number of them are really corporate-worship friendly. His music (at least in my opinion) is for the most part too difficult for the average congregation to sing.

But congregational songs have not really been his main purpose, I don’t think. The area where DCB truly excels is the marriage between cutting-edge music, creativity and lyrics filled with great theology. In this area they are basically in a league of their own.

My intent here is not to do a review of the CD, but I will say this: the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It has many layers than you can only appreciate after multiple hearings. I would describe the style as some kind of blend of techno/rock/pop/dance. This is not my normal cup of musical tea, but for this record I had to make an exception.

There is a short but great interview at Christian Music Today with David Crowder. Here is great excerpt:

Question: Are you the epicenter of the band’s creative process, or is it a collective effort?

Crowder: I make up rules for a particular project and then give assignments based on these rules. The music of the church has been most effective at articulating faith for groups of people when it has embraced the language and art of that particular group of people. So we had to embrace what is going on within pop music. Pop music has moved more urban in the last decade and yet most progressive church settings are still trying to capture U2 and Coldplay. Not that they aren’t relevant, but when you have hip-hop producers like Timbaland producing rock bands, the trend should be considered.

One of the rules this time was that all of the music must first be composed in a computer. Then the rules stated that we must destroy what we made and recreate it with organic instrumentation. I felt like this would keep us from straying too far from where we’ve been and also allow for some of our rock and indie rock influences to be audible.

A couple of other rules were that songs had to lead into each other. Also, each must contain a nod to a formative moment within the history of music in the church, and these moments must appear on the album in historical order. It’s a musical puzzle.

I love it! The whole CD is like one long symphonic composition, although in modern musical form. This is some of the best the church has to offer in its music: cutting-edge, creative, with an awareness and appreciation of theology and history, and in a form that connects culturally. Thank you, David Crowder!