Jake Hamilton and the Sound “Beautiful Rider” Album Review

To borrow words from Jake Hamilton’s own blog, Hamilton is the music and not merely the echo.  Our current worship music scene is inundated with clones who try to echo the successful sounds of trend setters such as Hillsong Live, Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman and Bethel Live.  Few have much to bring to the table in terms of songs that are arresting, refreshing and anointed enough to help us to see God in a new light. Jake Hamilton and the Sound is an anomaly.  Though Hamilton was once part of Jesus Culture, his own material is like nothing that has ever graced the worship music scene.  Combing his piano based neo-grunge balladry with some metallic rock guitar riffs, Hamilton and the Sound’s music is like a modernized version of Stryper with a swirling twist of Foo Fighters and Coldplay.   Further, in a sea of similar sounding smooth tenured worship, his slightly gravel-hewed tenor certainly grounds him as someone who could still testify to the goodness of God despite weathering through the seasons of life.

“Beautiful Rider” is Hamilton’s third solo outing and it’s also houses some of his finest compositions.  Two thumbs are raised as far as Hamilton’s mettle as a lyricist is concerned.  If you pay a close listening to album “Behold God is Great,” one can’t help but appreciate how Hamilton has weaved the words of God to Job into each line of this song.  And for those of us who can identify with Job in our sufferings, “Behold God is Great” would bring the same awe, comfort, fear and worship Job must had had felt when God first confronted him.  Hamilton not only showcases his stellar exegetical prowess with the Old Testament, on the title cut “Beautiful Rider” and “My Ballad to the Church of Laodicea” the Apocalypse is his controlling text.  Few preachers would even touch the book of Revelation, lest songwriters.  Yet, Hamilton treads where angels are afraid to skim with “Beautiful Rider” where the image of Jesus riding on the white house from Rev. 19:11-16 is at the song’s essence.  Featuring some distorted guitar riffs, a thick layered of scuffling drumming and Hamilton’s Skillet-esque screams, “My Ballad to the Church of Laodicea” is a no-nonsense wake up call to churches not to ravel in sloth and apathy.

Few worship songs catered much for the metallic rockers inside some of us.  Ratcheting up its intensity through its wailing guitars and some punchy guitars, despite its titular, “Slow Down” is anything but a decelerated paced prayer of surrender.  But not all is loud and louder:  “Just Beyond the Breaking” finds reveals a more intimate side of Hamilton.  Almost sounding like a roosty country piece with its plaintive smatterings of steel and strings, “Just Beyond the Breaking” is a beautiful meditative piece.  While the somehow more average sounding  “I Love Your Presence” is more in the Jesus Culture terrain of worship.  More left-of-center is the ultra catchy “Thank You” which contains a litany of thank-yous to Jesus springing over a bouncing Jason Mraz pop jazz lilt.    

In a culture where many worship songs are masquerading under trite and overwrought clichés, Jake Hamilton and the Sound’s “Beautiful Rider” is breadth of fresh air. This is a record that stretches us to consider beyond the “I-love-the-Lord” lyrics to make us think of how more obscure passages of Scripture can be a rich resource also in shaping our worship.  And for those who are tired of just the pop-anthemic style of worship, “Beautiful Rider” will help us to gallop into new pastures of worship, faith and truth.