Remedy

iTunes Review

Worship music aims for both simplicity and grandeur, and the David Crowder Band achieves this difficult combination on 2007’s Remedy. The Waco, Texas-based Christian rock sextet’s songs are intensely prayerful, yet stay rooted in earthly experience. Remedy refines and channels the creative breakthroughs heard on the band’s acclaimed 2005 disc A Collision. Crowder’s rough-finished vocals convey a sense of reverence, infusing tracks like “Everything Glorious,””Can You Feel It?” and “We Won’t Be Quiet” with a believer’s unfolding sense of joy. Key to the album’s impact is Crowder’s assertive guitar strumming, complimented by Jack Parker’s propulsive lead lines; the two pair up with special potency on a galloping revision of the hymn “O, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.” (For extra punch, the legendary Ted Nugent adds riffage here and there as well.) The album’s theme of healing humanity’s afflictions is made explicit in the title track and the particularly stirring “Surely We Can Change.” At once broad in spiritual scope and very human in feel, Remedy raises the bar for modern worship music.