Description
Abide With Me is the twelfth album by the American singer and songwriter Sara Groves, independently release on her own label Sponge Records in November 2017, marketed and manufactured by Fair Trade Services and distributed in the US by Provident Distribution. The album – a collection of hymns – was recorded in a 105 year old church converted into a studio, located in the West End of St Paul, Minnesota. Produced by John Mark Nelson.
Sentimentality can obscure worthy things, and these hymns and their relationship to the people who wrote them are absolutely fascinating to me as a person trying to relate to the world through song. These writers didn’t have the longevity of their work in sight. They were attempting to write about the character of God in light of their own suffering, and the suffering and confusion of the world around them. Is he our friend? they ask. Does he see, hear, remember, know… Is he acquainted with what it means to be human? What is his kingdom really like? These songs have risen to the top of a lifetime of hymns and songs, and in a season where language is difficult and caustic, form new sentences of hope and solace for me. I hope they do the same for you! – Sara Groves
My husband and I purchased a one hundred-year-old church in 2011 to host art community, and we set up a studio inside, which is where we recorded this record. Just months before we started recording, someone had posted a picture on Facebook of the church being built. The walls are about halfway up. The shape of the stain glass window has just been raised, but there’s no glass in it yet. And there are men standing on the landing holding hymnals and they’re singing, and the people are out around the church having a service in the street. I’m guessing it’s their first service at the new location. Everyone’s dressed up – the girls are wearing hats and dresses. I had this very poignant moment thinking about, Who went before us? What was congregational life like there? The church is such a resonant space. It has natural reverb, and it’s built for voices, not amplification. It’s built for people to sing. So for us to be recording a hymns album a hundred years later, there were several moments that had that zap of transcendence and connection. – Sara Groves
On the heels of 2015’s deeply introspective Floodplain album comes this collection of hymns set to varied tunes: traditional ones, original ones, and hybrid reconfigurations of the two. Producer John Mark Nelson, known for several well-received acoustic-ambient albums under his own name recently, brings a fresh sonic palette to Sara’s piano-based singer/songwriter style, achieving airy results on tracks like death hymn «Abide with Me (fast falls the eventide)» and «The Love of God (is richer still)», one of the crowning poetic achievements of hymnody. Groves also includes a few originals, including a remake of her well-known «He’s Always Been Faithful». The best track, «To the Dawn», retunes and adds an Isaiah 9:2 based refrain to Henry Burton’s 19th century poem “There’s a Light Upon the Mountains,” whose “hope beyond the aching” theme recalls much of Groves’ own most eloquent work: “Weary was our heart with waiting, and the night-watch seems so long, but the hearts of men are stirring, and we hail it with a song.” For good reason, these songs keep coming back around to subsequent generations. This opportunity to hear them afresh, from such an appealing singer, is most welcome. [Robert Berman, Worship Musician, December 2017]
Hymns collections. They were hot for a while – seemed like every Christian artist from Amy to Stryper (okay – maybe not Stryper) was on the bandwagon except Sara Groves… and isn’t that just like Sara? Never one to bow down to the current trend, Groves and her musical entourage have faithfully delivered the real, the heart-felt, the vital and personal in an age of superficiality and programmed ‘reality’ entertainment. This is the appropriate time for her hymns project, and it comes at a time when the comfort and simplicity of the great songs are welcome indeed.
In many ways it’s hard to review Abide With Me – it’s like reviewing your old-school Sunday morning worship time in church. I believe I’ve previously stated in other reviews, that hearing the unpretentious, vulnerable, but beautifully-rendered vocals on a Sara Groves record is like standing in the congregation and next to the best singer in the church. To clarify what I’m saying here: there’s no over-the-top vocal riffing, no breathless ‘worship team’ dramatics – this is where we all came from, once upon a time, when the hymns were in a book instead of on a screen, and the words found a nesting place in our hearts.
In some cases the titles will be more familiar than the melodies, as Abide With Me does a little alteration here and there. After all, Sara Groves has certain stylistic pathways that give some of the songs here her own special touch – but always with reverence and affection for the originals. «’Tis So Sweet», «Fairest Lord Jesus», and «The Love of God» get the Sara Groves treatment and take on refreshing new life. Listen not only to the incredible lyrics of «The Love of God», but try to catch the spirit of the performance…
The musical settings are acoustic, warm, and refreshingly free from electronic intervention. Woodwinds, mandolin, fiddle, banjo and accordion appear in appropriate places, and the additional voices are human and church-friendly. Also on hand are Aaron Fabrini (bass, pedal steel) and Zach Miller (drums), all produced with restraint and good taste by Mark Nelson and mixed by Ben Gowell.
When all is said and done, it seems natural to have a project like Abide With Me from an artist like Sara Groves, who has successfully shared real Christian life with the rest of us broken people out here. The hymns are a comfort. If there’s one track that’s worth the price of the whole collection, though, it’s Sara’s new version of her now two-decade-old, «He’s Always Been Faithful». The melody, the lyrics, the unabashed musical shout-out to «Great Is Thy Faithfulness», the song’s obvious inspiration, come together in a way that produces (at least for me) the essence of what a hymn can be. This is a song of gratitude, but a love song at the same time. In many ways that song encapsulates what this album is about.
Abide With Me is an album that refreshes the soul. I can’t think of a better time for this to arrive than at Thanksgiving. [Bert Saraco, The Phantom Tollbooth, November 2017]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/abide-with-me/1306943950)
CD tracklist:
01. For The Beauty of the Earth – 1:32
02. Fairest Lord Jesus – 3:33
03. Praise to the Lord – 3:18
04. Abide With Me – 4:15
05. The Love of God – 4:38
06. The Song of Blessing – 1:13
07. What a Friend – 3:51
08. To The Dawn – 5:11
09. Tis So Sweet – 3:52
10. Lead On Oh King Eternal – 4:03
11. He’s Always Been Faithful – 3:40
Note: Released on both CD and 12-inch vinyl LP, with the vinyl edition housed in a gatefold jacket. A scout book for Abide With Me was issued as well as a companion piece to the record, featuring chord charts and lyrics, photos, and production information.
Sara Groves has made her home in the Christian marketplace, but has always been more thoughtful and artful than most of her contemporaries. She tells stories of life through the prism of faith, admitting that sometimes life is harder than she knows how to deal with, and it is that faith that gets her through. Two years ago she made a great record called Floodplain that dealt with depression and day-to-day hardship with poetry and grace.
In some ways, it’s a bit of a shame that her new album, Abide with Me, is entirely arrangements of old hymns, but only in that I always want to hear more Sara Groves songs. There is no doubt, listening to it, that these songs mean so much to Groves. As an artist, she always makes me feel what she feels, even if I don’t always believe what she believes. That’s all I ask of anyone. These songs, she says, were with her during the hard times that informed Floodplain, and as a companion piece, it’s a beautiful thing.
And I love old hymns. Some of the most beautiful melodies ever composed were written in the service of prayer and worship. I grew up in a church that sang nothing but these often centuries-old pieces, and I always respond to them. I knew about half of the songs on Abide with Me, and grew up singing several of them. This album was recorded in a church in Minnesota that Groves and her husband have adapted into a performance venue and community center (the original building is on the cover), and just as they updated the space with reverence, they do the same for the songs.
The arrangements here are breathtakingly beautiful. Groves has, without fail, chosen songs of comfort here, songs that believers hold close in their darkest hours. The instrumentation is similarly comforting – pianos, guitars, some subtle embellishments, extremely subtle percussion. She sings these songs like an angel, but more than that, like someone who holds them dear. I mentioned in my Derek Webb review that the music I tend to respond to most is about the ways we connect with whatever is beyond us. Abide with Me is, at its core, about how Groves connects with the divine, and is drawn closer to it.
I’ll probably have a tough time mentioning highlights, because I love it all so much. «What a Friend» is a song I used to sing in church, but I’ve never felt anything like I feel for it now, in Groves’ hands. The brief «Song of Blessing» is glorious, as is the title song. I love what she’s done with «To the Dawn», a re-working of «There’s a Light Upon the Mountains». “And the hearts of man are stirring,” she sings, and stirs mine.
But I will make special mention of the closing song, «He’s Always Been Faithful», because it’s my favorite. Oddly enough, it’s the only original song here – it first appeared on Groves’ album Conversations, from 2001. Performed just on piano, with a smattering of upright bass and clarinet, it’s a song about God being with us in our pain, in our sorrow, on our worst days. Songs like this have always, always gotten to me, particularly if they’re so clearly personal and honest, and Groves, as she always does, makes me feel what she feels. I like that she added one of her own songs to this, and that it fits right in. Hymns are being written all the time, as people work through and wrestle with their connection with the infinite.
I’m still working through and wrestling with mine, and music has been one of the most helpful ways I do that. Sara Groves has been with me through much of that journey, and her authenticity and genuine artistry has been deeply valuable. Abide with Me is a record of solace in a world of turmoil, and even though its songs are hundreds of years old, documenting hundreds of years of man’s yearning for comfort from above, they feel brand new in the hands of Sara Groves. I can’t stop listening to this. Once again, I am glad it exists. [Andre Salles, Tuesday Morning 3 a.m., November 2017]
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