God bless you Peder and your fans.

Peder Eide-Rescue

2011©Eide Productions

Taste Worship label

The term "worship" implies reverence or adoration. I suppose getting to those points depends partially on the condition of your heart, and perhaps an external trigger. Enter the use of worship music. Can we say at this point that while certain objective criteria may be applied to worship music, such as promoting a theologically correct and high view of God, there is a subjective component of what an individual may deem effective in this realm? Certainly the evolution of contemporary worship music was a needed bridge to a new generation who did not gravitate towards traditional hymns and instrumentation. Great, absolutely necessary and progressive idea. My difficulty is when this idea ends up producing a formula and the artistic language of the form becomes predictable.

Peder Eide is unquestionably a talented fellow. There is also no question that somebody or some group put capital behind him to fund the production of the album Rescue. The playing is solid and the production is appropriate. My issue is that it doesn't reach out to me. I will cop to it being a subjective condition for me. I am certain, actually I can picture it, that folks in Peder's church probably are ushered into worship by these songs. I tried desperately not to lapse into senseless or unkind criticism of this disc but suffice to say, my heart desires something deeper. The construction of the songs is predictable and you can hear the effort to create atmosphere based on tried and true templates. If you have something more spiritually weighty to offer up lyrically, throttle back on the BPM's and make it keyboard driven (no, you don't have to drag out a DX-7 for that classic piano patch but if you want to....). If you want people to clap along to a cheerful ditty, make it bouncy and bright, no minor key here mister.

Look, there are plenty of folks that will like this disc and there is no crime in that. There are also folks that want more from their worship. Perhaps they feel more acutely the heft of our brokenness and sin disease that our Savior bore on the horror of the cross. They also may feel the great relief of the pardon that He paid for all eternity. I'm not saying Peder or his admirers don't feel this, just suggesting that some of us may feel it differently and find their expression of it in more diverse musical terrain.

God bless you Peder and your fans, someday we'll all be hearing music beyond our most amazing dreams at His feet.

DAA