Customer Reviews

Ghosts Upon the Earth

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Buy this album, lock yourself in a room, turn down the lights, and turn up the volume. Allow yourself to be immersed. This music will evoke pictures, memories, dreams... It is cinema.

This is not "Beautiful Things Part 2", but it does seem a natural progression for the band. It contains complex beat patterns, unique blends of instrumentation, beautiful harmonies, and authentically honest lyrics. There is certainly plenty of diversity among the songs, and yet the album has a one-ness to it.

I'm encouraged to see another example of Christians creating original, artistic, quality music. Despite it's overtly Christian themes, Gungor's authentic approach manages to avoid being preachy. It feels like we are eavesdropping on Gungor as they serenade their Savior. In essence, this is an album of love songs-- it was not written for us... Perhaps *this* is exactly why "Ghosts Upon the Earth" is so good.

Whatever your theological persuasions may or may not be, if you are a part of the human epic (hint: you are), I highly recommend this album.

After a release as successful and simply excellent as last year's Beautiful Things, I knew Gungor was going to have a hard time topping it with their next offering, which was to come a mere year and a half later. As Michael Gungor said in his post about the new album, "there was a temptation to take the safe route on this album and try to make a `Beautiful Things-2.' We knew people liked it, and the easy plan would be to try to do it again. That's not what we did." There is more truth to that statement than you might believe: Ghosts Upon the Earth isn't a "Beautiful Things 2' by any stretch of the imagination. It's something almost entirely different, and whether that is a good or bad thing I suppose depends on how the listener chooses to listen to it. There's no denying that Ghosts Upon the Earth is full of artistically stunning music and a powerful, cohesive story; I think it will really just depend on what the listener makes of it. This listener, at least, is thoroughly impressed with the record; and here's why:

Ghosts begins its artistic narrative with the Beginning in the epic opening track "Let There Be." Lisa Gungor's stunning vocals lead an awe-inspiring crescendo that musically feels a lot like you might imagine that moment where God said, "Let there be light," would have been like. The wonderfully deep and upbeat worship tune "Brother Moon" follows with a sense that the brand new Creation is worshiping its glorious Creator with lyrics like, "You're glorious, You're holding us together." "Crags and Clay" also captures a true sense of awe-inspired worship, only with a quieter sound than "Brother Moon." The quiet, captivating "The Fall" effectively brings in the album's idea of men being "like ghosts upon the earth," while "When Death Dies" follows with hope of eventual redemption (perhaps representing God's promise of a Savior after the fall in Genesis 3?) with a unique mix of a Latin guitar and a driving bass and drum groove.

At this point, you've already heard a pretty phenomenal set of songs, but Ghosts isn't even halfway over yet. Some of the album's strongest tracks are saved for last, especially from "Ezekiel" to the end. "Ezekiel" is practically heartbreaking as it describes the way Christ loves His Bride (the Church) despite her unfaithfulness, but the beautiful "Vous Etes Mon Coure (You Are My Heart)" comes immediately after as a gorgeous love song between Christ and a redeemed, repentant Bride who again adores her Husband ("When You first regarded me / Your eyes filled me with grace / Thereby again my eyes / Merited to adore You"). The proper response to such a great love is wonderfully displayed in the three closing tracks beginning with the grandly triumphant "This Is Not the End" and continuing in all-out worship through the delightfully bluegrassy "You Are the Beauty" and the beautiful sense of surrender in "Every Breath."

The album's two middle tracks, "Church Bells" and "Wake Up Sleeper," are quite good, too, but they don't fit in with the rest quite as well, which makes them a bit weaker. Still, "Church Bells" has solid lyrics and a light, fun mood while "Wake Up Sleeper" is effectively dark and strong musically with lyrics that recall some of Jesus' harsher words He spoke to the religious leaders in Israel at the time.

What makes Ghosts Upon the Earth so strong, though, is a combination of two particular characteristics, starting with the incredibly intricate artistry that composes every single song. The very structure of the songs is unusual in many ways, whether it's cutting a final chorus in favor of a lengthy and simply awesome outro ("Brother Moon"), utilizing some offbeat-feeling time signatures ("Crags and Clay," "Wake Up Sleeper"), or simply using three big, grand verses without a chorus to tie them together ("This Is Not the End"). Gungor's choice of instrumentation is also incredibly unique; you won't even hear an electric guitar on Ghosts, but instead there are plenty of strings, banjos, flutes, an oboe, and a wide array of other instruments you wouldn't normally expect to hear on a modern worship album. Also, everything on this record musically is intentional in the way it paints a picture to go along with the music, which makes every track incredibly effective musically and lyrically.

The second major strong point for Ghosts is definitely in the overarching story that makes it cohesive and unified. Seriously, this is an album you have to listen to, preferably with headphones on and the lights off. In order to fully appreciate any of these songs individually, you must understand how each one fits into the album's story; no song is fully complete without the context of the songs next to it in the tracklisting. For example, "When Death Dies" is fantastic by itself, but a lot of power is added to it when you understand that it's a promise of redemption after "The Fall" desperately asks, "How long 'till you save us all?" Also, the final five tracks are practically inseparable; that's not to say that you can't enjoy them individually, but for instance, you have to know what happens in "Ezekiel" to fully appreciate the beautiful love song that follows it, "Vous Etes Mon Coure (You Are My Heart)," and you have to understand the concepts of those songs to really understand why "This Is Not the End" is so incredibly and epically victorious. Ghosts Upon the Earth, unlike most other music released today, is an `album' in the truest sense of the word in that it really needs to be listened to from start to finish, and that unity makes it incredibly strong.

So really, at the end of it all, when "Every Breath" finally fades out, all you can really say is, "Wow." Ghosts Upon the Earth might not be perfect; in fact, it's hard to say whether it's really better or worse than Beautiful Things; but comparisons aside, the incredible intricacy of the music makes it excellently artistic and the cohesiveness of the overarching story weaves the whole thing together beautifully. That said, this is what you should do right about now: buy Ghosts Upon the Earth, really listen to it next time you have about 50 minutes to spare, and through your listening to it, let your heart worship the Lord for the glorious, wonderful, worthy God He has been, is, and always will be, and for everything He has done for His Bride even in her unfaithfulness. Excellent work, Gungor, you have truly crafted the work of art that you wanted to create with Ghosts Upon the Earth. Thank you for being bold enough to be outstandingly creative and do something different to sing fresh and new songs to our wonderful Lord.

As a musician and singer-songwriter (hobbyist), I'm super picky about my music. I usually criticize about 95% of the music so much that it annoys people I am close to. However, Gungor is definitely different. In terms of 'Christian' affiliated music, this band has no equal in my opinion. There is so much depth and variety in the music and lyrics, yet at the same time, there's a simplicity there. This album is hands down my favorite album of the year. When you listen to it, listen to it all at once if you can and it's a beautiful tapestry of glimmers of angst and hope all meshing into a 'post liturgical' symphony of awesome.

Buy it!

I do not like worship music-----the worship music of today to be exact. The last decade has seen an explosive new industry in music that continues to grow and bank millions of dollars every year. Colleges now even offer bachelor degrees in worship music.....and the unfortunate thing about the whole of it is the killing of art in one of mankind's oldest forms of expression: communicating the otherworld and his connection to his Maker through music. I speak as one who is an artist and has been a worship leader before, and the last several years have found me completely disconnected from worship music period. Too often we find contemporary worship mimicking what's been done before to the point of cheesiness, aimlessness, and vanity. The focus has gone from simply making art for the Lord to being as prestigious on stage as possible------all in a masquerade of Christian conviction.

Yet not all Christian artists fall into that category. A friend introduced me to Gungor's "Beautiful Things" last year. Upon taking it in, I thought the band had great potential and had unleashed a bit of it in some of the tracks from the album, but much of it still felt like the same old, same old. Just the other night I heard that Gungor had made a new record with a title taken from a line from C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce". I looked it up, listened to the samplers, read every review I could google, and finally decided to just buy the album.

"Ghosts Upon the Earth" is truly a throw back to the art Christians used to make. The entire album functions as a cohesive whole, each track a specific movement in a musical narrative. The approach the band took was most appropriate, which was "Let's ignore the rest of the music industry and attempt to make something that demands all of our creativity, something that we would be proud of in laying at God's feet as a work of art." And they pull off that approach extraordinarily. From the epic "Let There Be", to the moving "Ezekiel", to the very end of the album, I could tell that every strum of guitar, every stroke of the cello, every note played on the piano served a purpose in the whole of not just the single track, but the entire album. The music will take you from darkness to light, and instead of feeling like you're in a contemporary church, you will feel like you are in the company of minstrels dancing and singing on a hilltop during twilight.

If you are sick of radio friendly albums jazzed up with only singles for the top 40, whether you be in the secular or Christian music circles (or both), "Ghosts Upon the Earth" will feel like magic.

this is one of those records to listen to repeatedly.
Spirit permeates this music.
If you allow it your life will change.
I am great-full for these vessels that allow this music to flow through them to the world.
those are my words.

This album is everything the people above say it is...but if you have a chance to see them LIVE like I did, they are absolutely amazing. They're Touring with The David Crowder Band right now; they're doing an acoustic set. I don't say this lightly: They stole the show!

Let me start this out by saying, I absolutely love this album. I don't know that I can coherently explain everything about why though...
This album takes you on a journey from emptiness and the moment of man's creation through man's fall through man's rebellion to God to man's final redemption.

It's a big task, but they meet it with gusto. And instruments. Lots and lots of different instruments. Choirs, mandolins, banjos, xylophones, strings, and much more!

The haunting opening track with the boy choir singing the refrain "let there be" grabbed me from the moment I heard the album.
It quickly picks up with the joy of the newly created world with Brother Moon.
I was emotionally moved by the fall of man in The Fall. The intricate lyrics on this one deserve to be listened to with booklet in hand (well, on screen at least).
This Is Not The End is just so stirring!

AAAAAH I really can't explain this music, it's something that you simply feel. You must listen to this on a good sound system that lets you hear all the nuances then sit back and close your eyes and let it wash over you, empty you, fill you, and make you glad to be alive.

They did it again!

Gungor likes to do very interesting stuff. They could have gone and done a "sequel" to Beautiful Things, yet they raised the bar and did something completely diferent and exciting!

From the moment when "Let there be" starts the album, until "Every breath" closes it, a story is told. Every song has something to say, and it's not complete without the rest of the songs. Gungor has this gift of telling a lot of things without the need for too many words. And of course, the arrangements and performances are top-notch.

If you want the usual Christian mainstream music, this is not for you. But if you just open your mind a little bit, you'll find this album can take you in a journey where you will find joy, despair, anxiety, sillyness and many other undescribable emotions.

I think this record is a great step forward for Gungor. They have certainly set a new bar for many bands in this genre of music and those artists should take notice. People are bored with radio music and are excited about projects like this. This is a breath of fresh air and lyrically the album adds to a much needed conversation.

Definitely worth checking this band out. They are great live too! Heard them open for David Crowder band in Phoenix last month.