Derek Webb

Item: I See Things Upside Down
Author: Steve Stockman

I See Things Upside Down

(2004)

Reviewed by Steve Stockman

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Label INO RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2005

ccm folk rock indie rock singer-songwriter

Derek Webb has packed a prophetic punch with artistic power and poetry. The late Rich Mullins seed might be coming to harvest, and Webb seems to be leading the pack out of cliche and worn out sentimentality to make challenging albums both in the artform and the spiritual content. First the artform. This is a revelation in Webb's musical development. Caedmon's Call were a pretty straight-ahead acoustic band, and even in his very well executed debut solo album, She Must And She Will Go Free, was never pushing envelopes.

Here Webb is jumping envelopes. His voice is rough and ragged at times, which is a sign of the vulnerability and raw honesty of the words it verbalises. Musically, it all begins with distorted samples and quirky rhythms. There are sparse atmospheric moments like "Nothing is Ever Enough," there are cellos capturing your imagination in "I Repent," and there are spacious piano chords of "Medication." The variety of templates is ambitious and makes for an utterly fascinating piece of music, constantly intriguing, often surprising and never allowing you to take it for granted. It also seeps through to hypnotise you on a slow burn of underlying beauty.

The content is even more jarring and adds to the beauty the truth which is not such a pleasurable listen. There is an astute line here on "Ballad In Plain Red"--"Love the Lord but don't hear a single"--which specifies the CCM industry for its critique, not that any of us are let out from under the interrogator's light on this album. It is like Webb has read Donald B. Kraybill's insightful book The Upside-Down Kingdom and then done the ridiculous--applied it to his life! He has realised the need to repent of the American dream which tries to steal everything from us because it can never get enough. The rest of "Ballad In Plain Red" challenges the idea that when commerce becomes god, and those who follow God don't live in upside down-ness to it, then we become salesmen compromising truth for what works. This is one album that is not hitting the wall.

Webb's first album was a concept album based around the theology of the Church. This one is not a concept album, but it is strongly based on the theme of living this upside down life that Jesus called us to without artificiality or hypocrisy--the cover states

failure = success
poverty = riches
weakness = strength
foolishness = understanding

Webb is keen to ask what it means to take up Christ's cross daily and follow him and how far removed from such an invitation the western church is in these spoiled and selfish times. We demand things that we feel are our rights to make us secure and comfortable. To give credence to our decadence, we tame God "by domesticating you until you look just like me." What has this to do with God emptying himself and making himself nothing and dying on a cross and calling us to do likewise? This is not common stuff in a Christian industry where the album on the car stereo on the way to work is more likely to be about what blessing God will pour out on your heart today. The opening, "I Want A Broken Heart," leaves no one expecting the kind of designer spirituality that masquerades behind the bumper stickers of our perverted greedy version of capitalism.

Webb's going solo from Caedmon's Call and stepping back from the centre of the industry is paying rich dividends in content. To deal with these kinds of themes and not end up contrived is a success. To make it this good is rare indeed. How it sells is yet to be seen.