NEEDTOBREATHE “Live from the Woods” Album Review

Prime Cuts: More Heart Less Attack, State I'm In, Brother

NEEDTOBREATHE's brand new live album is a bonfire party surrounded by 5,000 adoring fans.  Such is the most apt synopsis of what "Live from the Woods" is all about.  On one hand, there is a tepid feeling of openness and warmth that exude out of these performances. Listening through this double disc of 17 tracks is the closest experience we can get to this Seneca, South Carolina band, save from actually attending one of their concerts.  Here on these discs we get so close enough to hear their stories behind the songs and participate in many sing-along opportunities that you can almost feel the sweat on the furrows of their heads. On the other hand, this is not a haphazard affair where the music sounds like they were recorded over a fan's iPhone.  Rather, what we have here is a polished enough record that doesn't allow the distracting exigencies that normally come with a live recording to dominate.

NEEDTOBREATHE comprises of Bear Rinehart (lead vocals, guitar, piano), Bo Rinehart (backing vocals, guitar), Seth Bolt (backing vocals, bass) and Josh Lovelace (backing vocals, keys).  When they first came upon the scene in 2006 with their debut album "Daylight," they were carefully not to be frivolously designated as yet another rock band.  Rather, utilizing rustic instruments such as banjo and fiddle, they have pioneered a unique subgenre of folk rock, a sound that finds Mumford and Sons meeting Third Day.  Further, their tales of sin, redemption, and grace not only have been embraced by the Christian music community, but they speak with so much realism that they are also revered by many in the secular wing too.  After 5 studio albums with their latest being "Rivers in the Wasteland," "Live from the Woods" is their debut live recording.

Most of the songs here are garnered from their studio albums.  But NEEDTOBREATHE doesn't just woodenly reprises their studio performances.  Rather, with a song like "Something Beautiful," the band even pauses so that fans can get their 20 seconds of fame by singing as loudly as possible.  Then on "Wanted Man" the additional organ riff is delightful; while "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" actually sounds better live than in the studio.  While the original version (from "Rivers in the Wasteland") has an Auto-voicing computerized gloss, here the live version has a rough-hewed Traveling Wilburys rock n' roll immediacy to it.  "Devil's Been Talkin'" with the prominence of banjo sounds more Americana-country than rock.      

Yet, what makes NEEDTOBREATHE's albums indispensable are the spiritual depths of their songs.  Most heart-wrenching is "More Heart Less Attack," an ode to the church to love more rather than biting each other's tails at the slightest slur.  In a culture of increasing social isolation, "Brother" rids relationships of all its dividing scaffolds.  Faith has not been more eloquently put than "Difference Maker:" "Isn't it amazing how God can take a broken man, and let him find a fortune and then ruin it with his own two hands, and he climbs on up the hill on the Rock on which he stands, He looks back at the crowd he looks down at his hands and he says I am a Difference Maker, I am the only one who speaks to Him, and I am the friendliest of friends of God."

Bonfires are often the most relaxing as well as the most revealing times.  When we feel the warmth not just of the fire but from the people around us, we start to melt down our defences.  And in many ways, this is what "Live from the Woods" is like.  It breaks down our defences that we can start hearing from God and others again without inhibitions.

 

 

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