by Joshua R Packard
My friend Eric Lee Bumley asked me back in December of 2023 if I could listen to his upcoming music album and write something about it. I was a little nervous but I said I could do that. One reason for my nervousness is that I don’t really know a whole lot about music. I know very little about music theory, key signatures, chords, or any of that sort of thing. Whenever my talented musician brother tells me about his music and he starts talking about chord progressions and scales and all that, I have no clue what he is saying. I like to listen to classical composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms but when I try to read a biography of one of them, and the author starts analyzing their compositions, I find it completely unreadable and incomprehensible to my musically ignorant mind. I listen to music, and can enjoy music, but I would have a hard time explaining to anyone why I enjoy one particular song and not another.
So I told Eric that I could try to write about his album. The other major thing that made me nervous about agreeing to this is that I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. I have a really difficult time finding music that I like and enjoy listening to. A lot of music just does not excite or interest me. It is not that music I don’t enjoy isn’t any good. A lot of music just does not interest me. I have tried so many times to look for some more music that I enjoy, but so often I have bought a CD, and listened to it, to find that I don’t like any of the tracks, or maybe there are only a few songs that hold my attention, only to be bored by every single track after a few listens. So when Eric asked me to listen to his album and write about it, I had a lingering fear that I would listen to it, and possibly not like it, or at best I would like one or two songs and not the rest of them. Even among my favorite bands and musicians, there are only a few albums that I like every single song on. Even on my favorite albums, there is usually at least one song that I end up skipping when I play through it.
So I agreed to listen and attempt to write something about Eric’s new, yet to be released album. He sent me a link, and I had to screw around with an iPod I never use, in order to change my password for some online music cloud service, but eventually I got the thing working, and started listening to the album’s first track, Electric Chair, which feels more like an introduction to the album than a standalone song. Fast forward through the rest of the album, and I really love this collection of songs. I have listened to Eric’s previous two albums, Rough Cuts and the Devil Goes Fish’n, over and over many times, and I think this new album tops both of them. I have listened to The Electric Chair album twice in full and played some of my favorites on it a couple extra times, and I think this is an album I could listen to over and over again without wanting to skip a single track. Like I explained before, this is something rare for me. I have a hard time thinking of many albums that I do not dislike or skip any tracks on. There are some songs on this album I like better than others, but they all are strong, interesting and enjoyable entries.
I am updating this from back when I wrote it after the first few listens. I have probably listened to this album at least 50 times. It is so good in my mind, that I listened to it at least once a day for about a month straight. Just so you know, this album is really all about Jesus. Every song has Biblical references. “The Electric Chair” talks about Jesus’ paying our debt for sin. “Job” is about the story of Job in the same-named book about the Devil going to God and telling him Job would curse God if he lost all the blessings God gave him. “Iscariot” is a live performance about the apostle who betrayed Jesus. Having a knowledge of the Bible helps understand all the Biblical references and themes throughout the songs, but hopefully these songs intrigue the less Bible-familiar to look up the stories and verses the songs allude to to greater appreciate the songs.
The whole album sounds like a guitar driven rock album. You can enjoy the musical qualities of the songs without getting the Bible-references. This doesn’t sound like a typical Christian worship album. If I didn’t recognize any of the Scripture references, I would still enjoy the album, the lyrics, the instrumentation, the excellent guitar solos, and the rest of it, but I would be intrigued enough by the mystery of the allusions to Scripture to dig more into what they are about.
My personal favorites are “No Rest for the Wicked”, “Red Sea”, “The One You Couldn’t Have”, and the concluding track “Gimme the Whole Truth”. I listened to the whole CD on earbuds and headphones, which I highly recommend as that songs take full advantage of stereo sound, so that you can hear the different sounds in various positions, such that each instrument or voice can be heard from various directions, creating a very atmospheric effect. That adjective “atmospheric” is very much how I would describe many of the songs’ effects. With headphones or earbuds, you can hear various parts of the songs all around your head. Some sounds feel behind you, or to the sides, or all around you, and this was very intentional, and really makes the songs more interesting and vibrant in a way that would be missed without headphones.
Some of the songs are very guitar driven. The vocal melodies are memorable. There is enough change, development, and build up of tension in each song that it doesn’t get boring to listen to on multiple plays. I tend to not like songs that do not have any changes or development, but these songs have enough variation that they interest me. Whenever I listen to this album, I don’t skip a single track. I have a hard time thinking of many albums where that is the case.
I hope you check out “The Electric Chair” by Eric Lee Brumley now that it has been released in full on any of the major music streaming platforms.
Go visit Eric Lee Brumley Music at https://www.elbmusic.com/
[NOTE: This review was written before the album was released, so there are some differences in the order of the tracks in the version I previewed with the final order of the songs on the album]
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