Sting

Item: Sacred Love
Author: Steve Stockman

Sacred Love

(2003)

Reviewed by Steve Stockman

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label A&M RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

adult contemporary pop rock soft rock

With a title like Sacred Love, one has to wonder if there might be some religious flavor to Sting's seventh solo studio album. Well, the answer is very much yes. There will be few albums released this year with more religious references than this. It is riddled with the word prayer, with Biblical quotes, and Jesus turns up a few times, too. What is going on? Has Sting had a Damascus Road experience? "Dead Man's Rope" certainly shows a change of direction from the early songs:

Walk away IN emptiness,
Walk away IN sorrow and
Walking away from Jesus' love to the ending
Walk away FROM emptiness,
Walk away FROM sorrow
And a walking in his grace line too.

The title track has him thinking about religion, what we believe, the Bible, Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge and the forbidden fruit.

Elsewhere, though, there are still hints of the familiarly secular and cynical Sting. On "Send Your Love," which could be an inspirational byline to a sermon on bringing in the kingdom, he sings:

There's no religion but sex and music
There's no religion that is right or winning
There's no religion in the path of hatred
Ain't no prayer but the one I'm singing.

In the explicitly autobiographical "The Book Of My Life" he puts it maybe pretty conclusively: "There's a chapter on God but I don't understand." It could well be that U2 have done to the 00s what they did in the 80s; bring religious-speak back into the vocabulary of the rock song. It is maybe trendy again and though there may be an honest wrestling with the spiritual in these songs he might be using it to find something to write about.

Musically, a conversion would do Sting no harm. Yes, this is not a bad album. How could it be? Sting has always taken the wise maxim of making sure your band is better than you and here the playing is immaculate and of course, Sting's voice is an instrument in itself. There are a lot of list songs, which has always been a trait of the Sting craft but one wonders if Sting is also wrestling with his ability to write great songs. Coming in the trail of his live best of All This Time maybe highlights the gulf between these efforts and his best work. You wonder where are the "Fragile's," "Fields Of Gold's," "Shape Of My Heart's" or "Every Breath You Take's?" You just cannot see the next Eva Cassidy covering these.