Description
Good Monsters is seventh full-length studio album by the American alternative pop band Jars of Clay, released on Essential Records in September 2006, a division of Brentwood Music, distributed by Provident-Integrity Distribution and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. The album was recorded at Blackbird and Sputnik Sound in Nashville, Tennessee; with the band producing. (The band credited fellow artist Ashley Cleveland with inspiring the improvisational sound of the album.)
Good Monsters won a Dove Award for Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year at the 38th Annual GMA Dove Awards, and both CCM Magazine and Christianity Today as well named Good Monsters Album of the Year.
Good Monsters features eleven original songs, and a remake of “All My Tears”, a song written by Julie Miller and originally recorded on her 1993-album Orphans and Angels. It also features guest appearances by singer/songwriter Kate York (on “Even Angels Cry”) and Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer fame (on “Mirrors & Smoke”).
I always have mixed feelings when I begin to hear about a project that’s ‘destined to become the album of the year.’ On one hand, I anticipate the possibility of some really stunning music, but on the other hand, I half-expect to be let down and left annoyed by the hype and hyperbole of the CCM industry. Jars of Clay’s Good Monsters project has certainly been touted as the band’s finest hour, and the album that will set the new standard for crossover Christian bands. As it turns out, Good Monsters is – well… good. Maybe better than previous Jars of Clay outings. Good, better… best? Best of the year? Against hype of that magnitude it’s hard not to disappoint – and the band does avoid disappointing through generally above-average playing and excellent production. …but certainly falls short of the lofty place that the CCM hype machine wants it to occupy.
Certainly, there’s a rock & roll edge on Good Monsters that Jars of Clay has usually not come close to. The opening track, «Work», starts the album off with a strong attack that perhaps sounds more like something we’d expect from a Switchfoot CD. The next track gets into some good solid pop-rock territory. «Dead Man (Carry Me)», hits us with a bridge and chorus that might conjure up The Newsboys to some ears. Next, the album begins to slow down a bit with «All My Tears», which has all of the earmarks of an updated standard, and even sounds melodically structured like a mid-period Petra tune.
If you’re beginning to see a pattern here, you’re right. While these are all good songs, there isn’t enough of a signature sound to unite them – a distinct Jars of Clay sound. As you move from song to song you can mentally list the bands that influenced the sound – not unlike those awful ‘sounds like’ charts that they used to post in Christian bookstores (‘if you liked «Take Me Higher», by Jars of Clay, you’ll like The Elms!’). The band manages to get closer to comfortable territory on the next two tracks; «Even Angels Cry», a wonderfully-produced, atmospheric slow-down that humanizes the band’s sound, and «There is a River», a country-rock acoustic song that Jars of Clay seems quite at home with. The half-point of the album is reached on the title track, «Good Monsters», an excellent rock-pop exercise with some nice Hammond work thrown in for good measure.
The next six songs – all good enough individually – still leave us with the feeling of having eaten a pretty good meal, but being unable to remember what the main course actually was. We do get some more good rock & pop, like the previously-mentioned Elms-like «Take Me Higher», which features some tasty guitar breaks; good Hammond-organ tinged rock on «Mirrors & Smoke», and even the increasingly-obligatory African Children’s Choir (is it me, or is this becoming a cliché?) on the sincere «Light Gives Heat». All of the songs are well-crafted, solid, well-performed tracks – the problem is, they seem to be almost like back-up tracks that could’ve been given to any number of bands to insert themselves into. «Mirrors and Smoke», the duet between lead singer Dan Haseltine and Leigh Nash, sounds as if Johnny and June Carter Cash lent them a leftover arrangement (not necessarily a bad thing).
The core members of Jars of Clay are, Haseltine on vocals, Charlie Lowell on keyboards and background vocals, Stephen Mason on guitars and background vocals, and Matthew Odmark on acoustic guitar, banjo and background vocals. Perhaps it’s the fact that a drummer and bass player are added to the group as needed, partially accounts for the polished but sterile effect of many of the songs on Good Monsters. Jeremy Lutito (drums) and Aaron Sands (bass) are excellent players, and turn in quality performances, but Nashville is full of great session men and great arrangers (in this case, Ron Anlello) who know how to get the job done without breaking a sweat – maybe this project needed a more visceral approach to really become an artistic statement instead of just a ‘good’ recording. Instead, we are left wondering about the musical identity of Jars of Clay – are they a folk band, a rock band, a country-rock band, a pop band, a straight-CCM band… Good Monsters: good – not great. [Bert Saraco, The Phantom Tollbooth, 2006]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/good-monsters/256244916)
CD tracklist:
01. Work – 3:53
02. Dead Man (Carry Me) – 3:19
03. All My Tears – 3:45
04. Even Angels Cry – 4:21
05. There Is A River – 3:51
06. Good Monsters – 4:05
07. Oh My God – 6:05
08. Surprise – 3:50
09. Take Me Higher – 4:40
10. Mirrors & Smoke – 3:58
11. Light Gives Heat – 4:41
12. Water Under The Bridge – 3:57
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