Music Review
By Todd Grover

Relient K: Four Score and Seven Years Ago

Relient K’s fifth CD, Four Score and Seven Years Ago, continues the pattern of getting better with each new release. This solid album highlights Relient K’s piano and guitar-driven pop sound.

The CD opens with a short Beach Boys-style cappella song and moves right into their piano and guitar sound on Come Right Out and Say It. I Need You is a song about searching and finding that the only thing that fills us is God. God is everything we need. Forgiven uses a majestic chorus to touch on our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness. The first single Must Have Done Something Right is classic Relient K with a poppy bass line, a catchy chorus and great background vocals. The lyrics in Give Until There’s Nothing Left embrace God’s command for us to serve others.

The CD has a couple of rockers on it. The song Devastation and Reform delivers a great guitar tone and shares how God works through our struggles. Bite My Tongue touches on the power, often negative, of our words. The closing song Deathbed is an eleven-minute epic story sung along with horns, strings and intertwining melodies. The lyrics journey through a man’s struggles, sin, redemption and forgiveness and ends with special guest, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot who sings the words of Jesus, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Relient K’s catchy pop sound and clever lyrics make this a CD that I would recommend adding to your collection.