Have you heard SoulSavers?

 

I recently downloaded It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land  by a group called SoulSavers.

Described by iTunes as “British downtempo electronica duo with rock, gospel, and country influences,” SoulSavers is made up of Rich Machin & Ian Glover, with Mark Lanegan on vocals.

I was filled with curiosity after hearing their single “Revival” several times on ‘XPN—both because of their sound and the overt spiritual content in the group’s name and single.

The album contains even more spiritual content, with songs called “Spiritual,”  “Jesus of Nothing,” “Ask the Dust,” and “Kingdoms of Rain.”

The last one could be called Southern Gothic electronica, as if Flannery O’Connor were singing about Katrina. The video also evokes images of Katrina.  

The video for “Revival” is interesting and worth a view (you can find both on, where else, YouTube). Check out the lyrics to “Revival” here:

Said, “Gonna be a revival tonight,”

Oh, I wanna see a revival, yeah

Gonna be a revival tonight

Lord, let there be a revival, yeah

 

Forgive what I have done

It means my soul’s survival, oh

I need You so, it’s sin

Put an end to my suffering, oh

 

Why am I so blind

With my eyes wide open? Oh

Trying to get my hands

Clean in dirty water

 

Wanna see a revival tonight

Lord, let there be a revival, yeah

I need to see a revival tonight, oh

Wanna see a revival, oh

 

Why am I so blind

With my eyes wide open? Yeah

Now I need someone

Let this dark night be done, oh

 

I need You so, it’s sin

Put an end to my suffering

I wanna see a revival tonight

Lord, there needs to be a revival

 

Here’s the lyrics to “Spiritual”

Jesus, I don’t wanna die alone

Jesus oh Jesus I don’t wanna die alone

My love was untrue

Now all I have is you

Jesus oh Jesus I don’t wanna die alone

 

Jesus, Jesus

All my trouble

All my pain

Will leave me once again alone

 

After several listenings, I’m still trying to figure out where these guys are coming from. Are they expressing personal faith, or using it as some sort of motif? I don’t think they’re using Christian language ironically.

There’s no doubt that in a post-postmodern world, many people see the bankruptcy of  the “do whatever feels good to you” belief system. They intuitively know that this is a recipe for man’s inhumanity to man. Or, as Dostoyevsky famously said, “If God is not, everything is permissible.”

So that perhaps leaves the door open to the exploration of spiritual—even Christian—themes in music and pop culture in general. I hope this is the case. For example, The Arcade Fire’s 2007 album Neon Bible was absolutely saturated in spiritual and Christian themes, and was many critics’ and fans’ choice of album of the year—not to mention mine.

Perhaps many are discovering that Christianity offers (at least) a comprehensive framework for expressing and reflecting on the “Big Questions” and what we might call the “Big Feelings”: guilt, shame, right and wrong, moral obligation, beauty, evil, life and death, and more. A lot of potential points of contact with the Gospel here.

If more people put out music like SoulSavers, we’ll have more opportunities to talk about these things with others, both Christian and non-Christian. Good stuff!