"Surrender" by Spoken, Thursday, July 5, 2021

Spoken is one of the hardest working Christian rock bands that has had very little recognition. Starting in 1996, the band released three albums on CCM singer's now defunct label, Metro 1 Music. Their early, roughly produced records sounded like Rage Against the Machine, and their lyrics also sounded like what Rage might sound like if they were militant conservative Christians. In 2003, the band released their first of three albums on Tooth & Nail Records, A Moment of Imperfect Clarity. Produced by Garth "GGGarth" Richardson, who had produced Rage, Kittie, Mudvayne, Chevelle, Trapt, and fellow T&N bands The O.C. Supertones, Project 86, and Beloved, Clarity made the group into a post-grunge group. The gloomy sound of Clarity was certainly a step up for the band. Their follow-up album, Last Chance to Breath, sounded similar to Clarity and the band looked like they would be joining the ranks of the biggest names in Christian Rock at that time. But their next album, their self-titled, was a major misstep for the band.

SURROUNDED BY PRIDE, THEY LEFT YOU CHOKING. Back in 2007, almost all of the rock bands screamed. Even Evanescence's massive Top 40 radio hit "Bring Me To Life" featured 12 Stones' lead vocalist Paul McCoy screaming. Spoken's new, 2003, had screaming incorporated, and their video hit "Bitter Taste" featured lead vocalist Matt Baird screaming with chaos metal band Norma Jean's lead vocalist, Cory Putman. The problem with the band's sixth album was that it was built around screaming. The album was intense, yet Spoken didn't tour with the hard bands they were trying to be. The band's sound was too inconsistent for many fans. But while the band parted ways with Tooth & Nail, they continued to release album after album. Their follow up to their eponymous record, Illusion, was heavy like Spoken, but more focused on melody. The band worked on refining their melodic sound, and continued to tour the Christian circuit. Unlike many Christian bands in their scene like Skillet and Red, Spoken had very little cross over appeal or perhaps no desire to share their music outside of the Christian bubble. Unlike the critics and the fans, my favorite Spoken record is their self-titled. Matt Baird has such an intense scream, and I was blown away how on-pitch he was when I saw the band live at Cornerstone. Spoken is a band that I don't think of often in the latest iteration of my faith. "Surrender" is a song dripping in Christian context, yet it doesn't come out and say it, making me think about what other contexts that apply.

YOU'RE GIVING UP YOUR HEART. All these years came down to the moment when Josh decided to surrender to what he had unconsciously known since he was seven or eight years old. No longer could this truth be compartmentalized in cyberspace. No longer could it be a reality of late nights and the blue light of a computer screen. No matter what Every Man's Battle said, he would no longer turn his head. It was time to stop the exhausting task of keeping captive every thought. It was time to surrender the future. There was no wedding cake and a nice girl and 2.5 kids waiting. If there had been; if it had been easy as it was for so many, Josh could have sleepily moved forward on the path he was now exiting through the bushes. He had bought into conservative Christianity and believed that the most accurate understanding was interpreted through the Seventh-day Adventist church, and that the best form of government was the conservative Republican party, and that C.S. Lewis and Ellen G. White described the Great Controversy between God and Satan was playing out in current events, and that his duty was to warn the whole world of the Second Coming. And yet, somehow, Josh couldn't live it out. He couldn't not go to those websites. He couldn't think of a future free of being himself. So, no longer would he delete the aliases he made online. No longer would he sabotage his future, his fate. It was time to surrender. 

 

Read “Surrender” by Spoken on Genius