Description
Decapitated Society is the debut album by the American singer and songwriter Jan Krist, released on R.E.X. Music in 1992. (Originally released on cassette-only by Ron Moore’s label Airborn Records the previous year.) As well released in the UK by Kingsway Music in 1993, re-titled Love Is Not To Blame and featuring new artwork. The album was recorded and mixed by Ron Moore at Sky Recording Studio in Schwartz Creek, Michigan; with Moore and Jan Krist producing. The CD was called “an incredibly powerful debut” by Billboard Magazine, and became the winner of Billboard’s Number One Critic’s Choice Album of the Year.
Jan Krist recounted how a trip to the doctor’s office with a girlfriend and her children inspired the song “Decapitated Society” which was to become the title track of her US-released album debut. She remembered, “There was a girl there who was taking a baby in and the baby was sick. I was talking with her and what I found out was that it wasn’t even her baby, that she was the babysitter. The mother was at work. And I just had this reaction that kind of went, ‘Wow, our society has really gotten in deep.’ We’ve kind of had to cut off our heads from our hearts and numb ourselves so that we don’t feel the pain of what’s going on in our society…that a mother can’t take time to be with her sick baby because she’s got business meetings.”
Krist is a Detroit-bred product of the recent acoustic explosion, which includes artists such as Suzanne Vega, Pierce Pettis, Tracy Chapman and Peter Case. Although her vocals echo the sound of early Joni Mitchell a bit too closely at times, Krist has a distinctive writing voice. Like most folk-based music, her songs are equal parts wordplay and charm, and Krist pulls them off in understated fashion. In the opening «Someone», the singer introduces the concept of the album’s title by asking the simple, yet direct question (in reference to the media), “so which one is really better, wolves in sheeps’ clothing, or wolves who look like wolves? And are they telling us the truth, or trying to pull the wool?” Krist sings of the yearning for true love – both physical and spiritual – with wisdom and maturity. Particularly touching is «Honey Moon», which tracks the marriage of two young lovers from their wedding day through an evening late in their lives when they reflect on how their union has endured a life of trials and blessings. The ability to craft those sort of intimate details is the mark of a storyteller with a strong future. [Bruce A. Brown, CCM, April 1993]
Odd for Kingsway to decide to release this 1992 album now that (a) REX has its own arm here and (b) in the States this album is called ‘Decapitated Society’ but I’m glad they bothered. Detroit-bred Jan Krist is one of the leading Christian exponents of that nu-folk/acoustic revival thing which takes in everyone vaguely roots-orientated. Jan has a voice pitched somewhere in the Suzanne Vega/Tracey Chapman mould, her accompaniments here are usually solely her own deftly played acoustic and her songs are excellent, usually insightful vignettes which recall T-Bone Burnett‘s oft-quoted observation that you can write about the light or the truth you see in that light. Jan prefers the latter and her songs like «Honeymoon» tracing the marriage of two young lovers through the years to an evening when they reflect on how their union has endured a life of trials and blessings; and the opener «Someone» where she asks the question about the media “so which one is really better, wolves in sheep’s clothing or wolves who look like wolves?” A consummate new singer/songwriter. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, June 1993]
There is a sense of wonder in life’s everyday thoughts and actions that seldom makes it onto vinyl (sorry, magnetic or digital media), revealing truths that surround us if we would only stop and look. This stellar debut by Jan Krist reveals an artist who has worked long and hard at her craft and has not lost the ability to see how fear and insecurity often walk hand in hand with love and devotion. With a spare instrumentation throughout, Jan’s clear yet fluid vocal delivery shines on every cut.
Two of the best songs are back-to-back; «Rain» peers into a relationship at its beginning: “Love strikes like lightning…/ Can we hold onto the clarity?/ Transform it to convictions/ An actions with sustain/ Or are we all like the rain?” «Honey Moon» precedes this number with gems of relational wisdom: “And I know it sounds/ Like a fairy tale/ But even when things/ Don’t go well/ They strive to keep/ The words they spoke/ Subscribing to eternal hope/ Even when all else fails/ There’s miracles and/ grace and love revived/ By a strong embrace.” Nearly every song gives you the feeling of reading a journal written by a close friend. There are few releases like this in these times; pick it up and catch a deep breath of life. [wheats, Cornerstone Magazine, Vol. 21, Issue 100]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/decapitated-society-wing-and-a-prayer/281996430)
CD tracklist:
01. Someone
02. Is The Light Burning?
03. Shine
04. Kindness
05. Honey Moon
06. Rain
07. Love Is Not To Blame
08. Carry Me Back
09. Depacitated Society
10. Dancing In The Graveyard
11. Can’t Close My Eyes
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by R.E.X. Records. Re-issued in the UK on cassette and CD by Kingsway Music in 1993, featuring new cover artwork and re-titled Love is Not to Blame.
Jan Krist’s debut album Decapitated Society, originally released on R.E.X. Music i 1992, was re-issued by Kingsway Music in UK in 1993, re-titled Love Is Not To Blame and featuring new artwork.
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