Canter Bridge

Steven Curtis Chapman brings to his craft – and to our ears – the well finessed interplay of pure foot-stompin’ energy and reflective Christian faith. His music was always good. This 1999 release catches the artist at a time when he was elevating his game.

Fortunate the ears that hear.

The title track ‘Speechless’ is convincing precisely because Chapman seems not to be telling an old tale for the thousandth time but rather narrating his own trek higher up and deeper in. This, nothing else, is what explains the particularly appreciative nuance of his loyal fan base. They come back time and again, aware that Chapman will not be where he was. But neither has he forgotten where he came from, who he is, and that others are listening in.

It may be just my impression, but the band sounds tighter, more revved-up, more bought-in than ever. Yet Chapman has always inspired the musicians he fronts.

Chapman is not the servant of a tame religion. If he colors himself speechless in the title track, in ‘Great Expectations’ he professes to be near to places ‘that I know so well”, then:

‘But dare I go where I don’t understand
And do I dare remember where I am
I stand before the great eternal throne
The one that God Himself is seated on
And I, I’ve been invited as a son
Oh I, I’ve been invited to come and …

Believe the unbelievable
Receive the inconceivable
And see beyond my wildest imagination
Lord, I come with great expectations’

This artist’s narrated experience is dynamic rather than static, derivative rather than self-generated, horizon-moving rather than consolidating. Like the Psalms, in the track just cited Chapman moves from ‘I’ to ‘We’ve been invited to come.’ As an artist – the ancient biblical poets understood this well – Chapman is aware of the vocation of giving away his personal experience in order to provide words and, in his case, melodies to the worshipping community.

Chapman has always been a master of rhythm. This album is no exception, giving us as it does the complex and beguiling ‘Next Five Minutes’. Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

This track would leave its close listener bored or weary if it did not flow rhythmically with such organic ease, a perfect cooperation between drums and acoustic guitar laying down a track adequate for Chapman’s voice to dance around it with an almost perfect storm of glee.

Yet Chapman is able to slow it down with similar dexterity, as the mournful ode to a lost child shows (‘With Hope’). Chapman inserts an orchestral interlude called ‘The Journey’—there’s actually an oboe in there—before shutting things down with ‘Be Still and Know’, an altogether fitting bookend to the opener on a CD that is after all called ‘Speechless’.

The biblical theologian Walter Brueggemann titled one of his works ‘Abiding Astonishment’. The title could do double duty here. Worship, astonishment, speechlessness, exuberance, and finally solemnity and stillness. Steven Curtis Chapman has lost not a step.