Not that I get my jollies from writing negative record reviews. However, ’tis far better to be truthful, as is the case with today’s Examiner column.
Does Skillet have the skill?
"Awake", the new album by Christian rock band Skillet
A rather remarkable event occurred a couple of weeks ago when Awake, the new album by Christian rockers Skillet, debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts.
No, not the Christian charts.
The Top 200.
It would have been impossible during previous generations for such to occur. The pioneering work of artists and bands such as Undercover, Daniel Amos, the 77s, Steve Taylor, Altar Boys, Crumbächer and others paved the way for groups such as Skillet, Pillar and other bands who successfully ply their trade in both the pop and Christian market. (More information on the first generation of Christian modern rockers is available in the book God’s Not Dead (And Neither Are We), written by the author of this column.)
Returning to the here and now, while such moments are tremendous highs for evangelically-minded youth to open doors for conversations about Christ with their unsaved friends, how does Skillet’s new album stack up against today’s musical environment?
Pretty much like everything else in its genre.
In other words, meh.
Skillet is Linkin Park meets Papa Roach with a dash of Evanescence thrown in for church youth groups; i.e. another emo minus the screamo group pretending to be monster rock mavens. Unlike Linkin Park there are no pseudo-rap lines, but musically it’s from the same groove as the aforementioned bands, sounding like it has a hard rock edge and crunch to it but in fact pure pop. The style is present. But the substance? Not so much. Ironically, Pillar is in much the same vein yet has genuine bite. Skillet can barely muster a nibble.
Lyrically the album is chock-full of evangelical angst, faith and doubt pitted against each other. This can result in some bizarre juxtapositions, such as in “Hero” where one minute we hear about losing faith and the next about a hero (Christ) living in us. Skillet is great at painting the situation and asking questions, but the answers, at least on this album, are a bit harder to discern.
It’s not that Awake is a bad album. It does what it does quite well. The problem is what it’s doing has been done to death over the past several years, and it’s become fundamentally disinteresting if in fact it was interesting in the first place. Skillet deserves congratulations for its success, but one can only hope somewhere along the line it does something other than churn out more of the same ol’ same ol’.
I concur with your views, Jerry. Skillet has become yet another boring, hackneyed group trying to play the teen angst card when they’re well beyond the proper years to do so. It’s like they’re trying to use volume and vocal inflection to be interesting when they really have nothing else to say anymore. In the meantime, plenty of better, more creative bands are being shut out of airplay because old favorites like Skillet can do no wrong in the eyes of programming directors.
One of my friends has called them ‘Skilvanescence’ for a few years now. It’s obvious who they’re trying to follow. A shame, because their first two albums were genius, especially the second. They’re going the same path of Switchfoot and Mute Math. Bleh.