Flap Your Wings (©2000 The Choir Records)

Tracks: Flap Your Wings / Shiny Floor / Mercy Lives Here / Hey Gene / Sunny / Flowing Over Me / Cherry Bomb / I Don't Mean Any Harm / A Moment In Time / Beautiful Scandalous Night

Hard to believe it's been a couple of years already. My Choir experience wasn't a trickle of exposure over 20 years. It was like drinking from a fire hose. I got the Never Say Never boxed set (the signed, but not numbered version), with Flap Your Wings was thrown in as a teaser.

I played this one over and over (it's playing again as I write this), and was really struck by Derri's voice, and of course the all over the map bass of Tim Chandler. The songs were tight, weird, atmospheric and very catchy. Heck, the boys even snagged a Grammy nod for this one (they lost to a compilation album by DC Talk, hmmm). Not bad for a limited release indie project.

This is a great record - dare I say it - their best so far. Songs like "Flap Your Wings", "Hey Gene", "Mercy Lives Here", and "Beautiful Scandalous Night" (better than the Foot of the Cross version in my opinion) are among the highlights, oh wait, "Flowing Over Me" is really good too. Heck they're all good. Although why they chose "Cherry Bomb" as a single is confusing, since it's an okay song not a great song. I mean really, from all the great songs to choose from.

PS Is it just me or does Derri remind anyone else of a youngish Paul Williams? I saw him with the Lost Dogs recently and I couldn't stop looking at him and wondering if they were related. If he'd broken into a version of "The Rainbow Connection" I'd have known for sure.

I'll probably get mail on that one.

Sigh.

Reviewed November 21, 2002

Live at Cornerstone (©2000 Galaxy21)

The Choir Live at Cornerstone 2000 1: Circle Slide 2: Yellow Skies 3: Consider 4: Children Of Time 5: Kissers And Killers 6: Amazing 7: Love Your Mind 8: Sentimental Song 9: Sad Face 10: Tear For Tear / About Love 11: Speckled Bird 12: To Cover You 13: Hey Gene 14: Chase The Kangaroo 15: To Bid Farewell 16: Beautiful Scandalous Night

Live at Cornerstone 2000 is the second of my live albums by The Choir, those swirly girly atmospheric heroes of art pop rock. This time out the guys are joined by fellow swirly noise man Marc Byrd. Who makes a pretty significant contribution to the band.

The guys are allowed some slack, as they aren’t really a live band. They play once a year if they’re lucky, and release the occasional album. In 2000 the guys were flogging Flap Your Wings, an album that introduced me to the band. It would have been nice to have more songs from that album, but Cornerstone is a rare gig, and people want to hear their favourite Choir songs. And to that end they deliver.

The band’s performance is surprisingly good, and no doubt the guys were feeling a little rusty, but it’s hard to tell. Live albums are an odd duck at best – and thankfully the guys just let it fly (again), and let the chips fall where they may.

I’ve had this CD for a long time, and play it occasionally. I like this one for what it is, but it’s more of a time capsule than an album. Fans will no doubt snap it up, but if you already have Let it Fly, there really isn’t much here that you haven’t heard.

A delight for fans, but not the best place to start if you’re a casual fan.

Reviewed May 11, 2006

O How The Mighty Have Fallen (©2005 Galaxy21)

1: Oh How The Mighty Have Fallen 2: Nobody Gets a Smooth Ride 3: She's Alright 4: Enough To Love 5: Terrible Mystery 6: We Give We Take 7: Fine Fun Time 8: How I Wish I Knew 9: Mercy Will Prevail 10: To Rescue Me

Has it really been five years since Flap Your Wings, the little album that managed to garner a Grammy nomination against the big label backed CCM machine? I'll freely admit to being a late convert to the band. You could say I've more than made up for lost time. So unlike a lot of the band's fan base I'm not one of the faithful who hearkens back to the glory days of Speckled Bird, or Circle Slide as high water marks for the band. I worked my way backwards from Flap Your Wings and then waded my way through the more than comprehensive boxed set. The title is a perfect self-depricating nod to themselves.

There are two ways to take these guys - you either love 'em or you can't see what the fuss is all about. As you can probably guess I fall in the latter category - although to be honest the first couple of times through this one it didn't really grab me in the same way as their previous outing.

However, given a little time, Derri's emotional vocals, and Steve's quirky lyrics soon found their way under my skin. Also joining the band this time around is Marc Byrd - who produced and lent his atmospheric guitar noise to the effort. He's a good fit with the band.

Musically this is still The Choir - in all its swirly spinny jangly glory. There are some really good songs here, from the title song, "She's Alright", "Terrible Mystery" (one of my favourites), "How I Wish I Knew" (brilliant), and "Mercy Will Prevail". It's obvious that these guys love creating music - they're not so old that they can't get up again.

Reviewed May 3, 2005