Almost a Masterpiece

Jeffrey Overstreet of Looking Closer brings us a review of Over the Rhine's new double album Ohio. From his account, this is not an album to miss and stands as possibly their finest work to date.

Even more of a must read is Overstreet's revealing interview with OTR songwriter Linford Detweiler about the new album and why he was "born to be a songwriter." On the subject of songwriting, he said:

It goes back to that metaphor of having ‘ears to hear and eyes to see’… there are these little clues, these little snippets of the eternal that are constantly coming into focus for a few moments and then disappearing. I often wonder how much we miss.

At one point, Linford says that "Jesus kept turning up on this record" and went on to describe the feeling of being "haunted by Christ":

I guess our prayer would be that if we are haunted by Christ, which of course we are, that it is the Christ that declared obsolete forever the “kill or be killed” approach to resolving differences, the Christ who turned over the tables of those who were trying to make a buck off!
of salvation. The Christ that turned water into exceptionally noteworthy wine. That’s the Christ that I want to be haunted by, that I would welcome… I would welcome that Christ’s influence on any song. 

Discussing his Christian faith, he said:

That’s a kingdom that I still deeply believe in, in terms of where I am with Christianity, in terms of growing up in the Church. In some ways it’s hard for me to get really interested in this idea of getting right with God so we can be whisked away to heaven, and experience eternal bliss. But when I start thinking in terms of there being a kingdom that could come to earth to resolve all of this madness, that’s what I start getting excited about, that’s what I start remembering. I start remembering that, yeah, people could die for this. There is something potentially revolutionary going on that can heal deep-seated violence and roots of bitterness that seem to poison our best efforts.

That's the kind !
of kingdom that excites me as well. "Heaven on earth, we need it now..."

Posted by John Hawbaker at August 5, 2003 10:14 AM | TrackBack