Women have never had it better in rock music than right now. It used to be you could thumb through the entire alternative music rack at your favorite Christian bookstore and never see a female face looking back at you. But after years of howling, posturing males, the public is at least partially tiring of Y-chromosome dominated rock. And riding the crest of this brave wave are New Braunfels' favorite sons and daughters, Sixpence None the Richer. On their sophomore release, This Beautiful Mess, the band with the name that's a mouthful more than doubles its membership and turns its sound around a more aggressive corner. It is beautiful, and it is a mess.
Fans of their first album, which was surprisingly overlooked at the Dove Awards, may be put off at first by the rockier tone which shadows much of this album. Some of the songs contain plenty of feedback and fuzzy guitars, as if the Prayer Chain had sneaked into the studio at night and laid down some extra tracks for this album. But the jangly pop of The Fatherless and the Widow isn't gone; it's only mixed in with the rest. Sixpence isn't a duo anymore; it's a true band, and all five members make their presence known in both songwriting and sound textures.
Lead vocalist Leigh Bingham finds a wider range of expression, from a siren wail on "Angeltread" to a wispy cry on "Melting Alone." "Circle of Error" resonates most strongly with their previous album musically, but overall it's great to see growth and change. New guitarist Tess Wiley only offers one song to this collection, "Disconnect," but it's a kicker.
Lyrically, this album falls in line with Keith Green, Leslie Phillips, Julie Miller, and other artists who point to God through a shell of their own brokenness. In fact, without the peppy affirmations which littered their last album, this effort seems a little depressing in comparison. But the album's point, as its copious liner art explains, is that man is, himself, a mess which is only beautiful because God makes it so. The art itself deserves a mention, as almost every page of the CD booklet contains at least one original painting by various artists, including Rev. Howard Finster, whose art adorns albums by many artists--including REM, and Jimmy A.
This isn't an album to splash around in. The lyrics are more abstract this time, and the musical texture is thicker. Most bands are happy if their second album manages to equal their first. Sixpence should be able to sleep well at night with this sophomore effort under their belts. If this is their idea of a mess, their music should look great once they clean up.
Other coverage for this album
7ball #1Reviewed by Chris WellPay attention, because they might ask this on a quiz show someday: "Which hip, AC-friendly intercollegiate modern pop band released both its first and second release with just one record?" Well, one possible answer is Sixpence None The Richer; since their soph release This Beautiful Mess is actually the first to feature a whole, complete band. Songwriter/guitarist Matt Slocum and lead vocalist…Salt #26Reviewed by RoadrunnerI'd almost say this is about as much like the Cranberries as it is Sixpence. Not that Leigh doesn't sound like herself, she's as smooth as ever. And Matt's unmistakeable guitar picking & strumming is there, though he plays it a bit harder on many of these songs. This Armand John Petri produced follow-up to the debut Fatherless... is at least as good, shows the same good songwriting ability of…Similar sounding releases
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