“This is war on sin and death;
The dark will take its final breath.
It shakes the earth, confounds all plans;
The mystery of God as man.”
From This Is Was by Dustin Kensrue
Thank you goes out to my good pal Paul Bowman for tipping me off on this one. This is a powerful song on a powerful album by a powerful young man from a powerful post industrial grunge band! An old intern of mine, Justin Zoradi, introduced me to Thrice in 2005 and their erudite theological pronouncements accessed me to their rather loud musical territory. For those who like to rock and do some theo-musicology Thrice are pretty much essential. Dustin Kensrue is the theologian at the heart of the band; did someone say he had a degree in theology.
Anyway, this solo Christmas album is all stripped back to guitar and the man’s big, big vocal. It is reminiscent of Kurt Cobain on the Nirvana Unplugged record. It all gives some real potency to the season. He throws out varying hues of Christmas with Please Come Home For Christmas, sitting alongside the earthiness of Fairytale In New York, a few carols and two original songs including today’s Lyric For The Day This Is Was. This is the last song on the record and it is the altar call. Here Kensrue packs the punch. This lovely holiday period where chestnuts roasting, mulled wine sipping, turkey stuffing and gift giving has a heavier message; God is dealing with the state of the world. When that baby gently hit the straw, the core of the earth shuddered with revolution!
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