As If...

Item: Strange Blue Thing
Author: Steven S. Baldwin

Strange Blue Thing

(1998)

Reviewed by Steven S. Baldwin

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify

Label New Dawn MusicThe Phantom Tollbooth1999

electronic pop rock synth pop

On their second proper album and follow-up to 1995's Flame EP and 1996's Forget Me Not, As If... have blended sounds both old and new to create a brand of music rarely heard in the CCM community. Their experimental techno-pop-rock sweeps the spectrum from near rave-styled songs to more commonly accessible electronica rock hybrids. They are at their best with the latter. Actually, their songs are generally more structured and less ambient than most rave material, but some similar sound shades are favored here, resulting in song-driven pop smarts in a range of techno rock environs. Guitars crash, jangle, and crunch along to a more electronic-based bottom end, with lead vocalist Phil Goss's voice and keyboard compositions wafting over the mix.

Over the course of these thirteen diverse tracks, the musical textures fluctuate from delightfully fuzzy and cluttered to more crisp and clear. Early listens suggest an eighties vibe that actually grows less apparent with repeated listening. Thoroughly faith-focused, their sound is certainly darker than New Order but never as dour as Depeche Mode. Neither is it as aggressive as Under Midnight or Prodigy, nor as ambient as Moby's mellower work, and gratefully not as peppy and dismissible as Erasure. In fact, their overall sound is closer to an even more modern spin on early nineties work like The Farm, E.M.F., Jesus Jones, and even some of Duran Duran's more electronically driven moments. The members of As If... cite bands like Genesis and Queen as influences, but the creative spirit of electronic pioneers Howard Jones and Thomas Dolby seem more likely. Regardless, the result shows ambition, creativity, and pop sensibility and proves to be a good listen. As an added bonus, the production is exceptional and the album artwork has pages and pages of well done computer generated images that accompany a complete set of lyrics.

Speaking of which, the lyrics are primarily of the straight-forward, faith-encouraging variety and prove to be carefully constructed without being obscure. They rarely verge into sublime cleverness, but manage to keep from the abyss of utter triteness. One of the best songs on the album, "Area 51," uses the supposed site of the USA's UFO stash as a vision of hell in a song that also paraphrases both Shakespeare and William Blake liberally:

This world is just a stage you know
And we are merely players
And when you're done, you're gone for good
Slip off the mortal coil
I see no need for some higher supreme being
No Area 51.

Consistently strong, there are some excellent stand-out examples of music in this genre, such as "Lost of Found" and "Backwards," among others. The space-age vibes and odd sounds, like a metal detector, all contribute to an album's worth of faith-filled fun. This isn't thoroughly ground-breaking work, but it comes close. Expect great things from this band.

4 tocks