Houston, Texas based Caedmon’s Call combines folk-rock with alternative angst to create a sonic blend that is at turns both astonishing and compelling. This is a thinking-man’s band, the lyrics reaching beyond the simple "God loves you, yeah God!" stylings of some Christian bands.

The inside cover of 40 Acres shares the theme of this project: There is a geography to redemption, a way in which the ideals of grace and renewal make themselves real in this world. All creation is groaning for its redemption, and we join in that chorus. We are surrounded on all sides by the forest of our failures, our dirty feet fighting the thorny underbrush. Or we wander the used-up cities of cement dreams and strip-mall’s seductions. This is where we live. But to us who are weary and broken, the God of redemption gives the plains, and a view of the land that we have yet to claim… The songs on this record come from that place."

At first it seems a daunting premise, to reveal such personal struggles, but this recording more than lives up to the task. The real gems of this disc are stories of very personal struggles, ones that reveal the hand of God reaching into our sometimes lonely and desperate lives.

The opener, There You Go, takes a phrase often repeated in frustration and turns it to praise God. "There you go working good from my bad / There you go making robes from my rags / There you go melting crowns from my calves / There you go working good of all I have / Till all I have’s not that bad."

Table For Two is a very personal glimpse into the life of the single Christian. There is the continual pressure from the outside world to be part of a couple, yet the pressure within of trying to live completely for our Lord. As Derek Webb sings, "…I’m so scared of being alone / That I forget what house I live in / And that it’s not my job to wait by the phone / For her to call."

Where I Began tells the tale of a man trying desperately, much like Jonah, to escape the will of God in his life, yet at the same time so desiring to be used by Him. The chorus says it all, "Here I am again back where I began / Try as I may I can’t get away from you / And all these roads that lead me to roam / Bring me back home / Here I am again back where I began."

The songs Somewhere North and Daring Daylight Escape are like different faces of the same coin. They are both love songs, but where as North is a mournful song of being on the road and missing the one you love, Daylight is fast paced, full of the first bloom of love and the excitement of loving someone and hoping that the other reciprocates. In North, Derek Webb sings "It’s cold in Kansas city / And I can no more hear you than I can see your face / How I wish it was just you and me." In Daylight it’s "You can read all about it / About boy meets girl and then screws the whole thing up / just like always."

The record ends, appropriately enough, with the title track, 40 Acres. It is a song about seeing beyond the day to day of our lives, to see the hand of God at work behind the scenes; it encourages us to see our lives as God sees them. "Out here the Texas rain is the hardest I have ever seen / It’ll wash your house away, but it’ll also make you clean… There’s forty acres and redemption to be found / Just along down the way."

Musically and lyrically, this is one of the most compelling recordings I have heard this year. It is, to be sure, a modern classic, worthy of listening to again and again.

--Bulldawg