“Through It All” by Spoken, Sunday, November 5, 2023

Six years after releasing their eponymous sixth album, Spoken released Illusion on E1 Records, a New York-based independent record label. The band began work on their 2013 album back in 2009, recording with Jasen Rauch. By their seventh album, Spoken had become a veteran band, having formed in 1996. The band’s rough recordings on Christian pop star Crystal Lewis’ label Metro One produced several hits for Christian hard rock radio such as RadioU. Of these recordings, only their 2000 record, Echos of the Spirit Still Dwell is available on Spotify and Apple Music. In 2003, the band signed with Tooth & Nail Records.

I SAW THE STORM, FELT THE WINDS BEGIN TO CHANGE. With the partnership between Spoken and Tooth & Nail Records, the band developed their sound with bigger production budgets. The development of Spoken’s sound over the course of the three Tooth & Nail albums impacted the band until their most recent singles in 2020. Starting with the droll, mid-western rock sounds of A Moment of Imperfect Clarity, the band ventured into a popular-sounding post-hardcore, abandoning their Rage Against the Machine-inspired earlier music. Their 2005 follow-up Last Chance to Breathe crafted a tighter, albeit somewhat monotonous sound. The band shot a video for the song “Bitter Taste,” which featured Norma Jean frontman Cory Brandon, adding growling vocals to Spoken lead vocalist Matt Baird’s clean vocals on the chorus and higher-pitched screaming on the verses. While it was the more melodic single “September” that gained the most radio play for the album, “Bitter Taste” became the prototype for the next Spoken album, which only featured a few melodic, radio-ready songs.

LOST ALL HER DREAMS IN THE OCEAN. Heavy Spoken didn’t play well on Christian Rock radio, although sonically Matt Baird’s intense screaming on key made the band’s self-titled album a quite satisfying listen. The band’s seventh album, Illusion, picks up where Spoken left off with the first songs “Stand Alone” and “Beneath the Surface” but quickly transitions back to melody on later tracks. Even the heaviest songs on Illusion have a singable chorus. Producer Jasen Rauch channels some of Red’s heavier moments as well as his other masterpiece, Love and Death’s Between Here and Lost in his production of Illusion. The lyrics to the lead single from Illusion, today’s song “Through It All,” are vague, but evoke scriptural metaphors of overcoming hardship. The chorus feels equally Daniel’s friends in the fiery furnace as much as the myth of the phoenix. It’s ultimately a song of hope, and perhaps it’s that hope that someone like Matt Baird needs when the music industry and his ability to make a living as a working musician shifts. Maintaining a modest following from 1996 is quite an impressive feat, especially when Spoken was a band that never had a time when they were the biggest band. It’s certainly an admirable endurance.  

Read the lyrics on Genius.