Four Days Late

In the same way that a great song has a “hook,” something lyrical or vocal or instrumental that grabs you and reels you inside the song, an album needs a hook. There’s nothing glaringly wrong with Waiting, the newest release from Alabama-based worship band, Four Days Late, whose name is derived from John 11:17. The melodies are good. The lyrics are lacking yet the arrangements are very good. But when the CD is playing on the stereo, people come and go and nobody notices – it just doesn’t have a great hook.

For many albums, the hook is simply the best song. Four Days Late released “Glorious King” and “Revealed” as singles, and although these tracks are congregationally-friendly and inoffensive, they lack star power. Part of the problem is Robbie Cantrell’s voice, which has a somewhat formal tone on “Glorious King” and “What You Did.” He’s a perfectly adequate singer, but in the same way that some faces are photogenic, some voices are audiogenic. (Okay, I just made up that word. So sue me.)

Granted, not everyone is blessed with a distinctive rock timbre like Third Day’s Mac Powell, but if you’ve got everyman ordinary vocals, you have to compensate for that in some way. This problem can be mitigated with harmony, and when two of the band members sing “Greater love hath no man than this” (”What You Did,”) there’s an all-too-brief moment of layering magic that’s like a rainbow slicing across a dull sky. Cantrell’s voice also works well on the cover of Kristian Stanfill’s arrangement of “Jesus Paid It All.” Perhaps he’s more folk singer than rock singer.

While this band has songwriting potential, their biggest obstacle is lyrical. It’s extremely difficult in the worship genre to come up with fresh metaphors – sometimes I worry there are none left – but you best not borrow ones already made famous by better composers. When Cantrell sings “My glorious, my glorious, Your love forever reigns” (”Reign,”) it brings to mind the brilliant adjective-as-a-noun “My Glorious” by Stu Garrard and Martin Smith, recorded by Delirious, Newsong, and others. Likewise, the title “You Are Our King” brings to mind Billy Foote’s worship classic, “You Are My King (Amazing Love).”

Although it’s admirable to do their own material (ten of eleven tracks), given their superlative arranging skills, Four Days Late shouldn’t shy from interpreting other artists’ songs. From the thrashing flams on “Revealed” and the synthesizer on “Reign,” to the choir on “You Are Our King” and the strings on “Waiting,” they know how to highlight different instruments so the songs don’t all sound the same.

Four Days Late has the potential of sounding as great as a band like Sonicflood or an artist like Shaun Groves. My guess is that they’re effective in a live worship situation, but the sizzle just doesn’t translate to an album that’s mired down by several producers, three different studios, and mediocre material. Still, Waiting might be a good purchase for worship leaders looking for ways to emulate the band’s style and softly rock up a service, especially since Four Days Late’s savvy website generously includes the lyrics and chord sheets.

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