Looking back at my best of 2011 list, I am cautioned by the apparent dearth of loud, rocking music. Here's some noisy stuff that I overlooked from last year that has come to my rescue right on time. Turns out all these rockers also have a unique connection to Christian spirituality, making them all odd souls.

Odd Soul
MuteMath  (Teleprompt/Warner Bros.)

This is the third full-length studio album from inventive alt/rockers MuteMath, entirely self-produced for the first time in singer Paul Meany's home studio in New Orleans. It's also the first album without guitarist Greg Hill, with bassist Roy Mitchell-Cardenas playing all the guitar parts for the album, ultimately filling the hole left by Hill with guitarist Todd Gummerman.

Throw together a hot serving of NOLA funk and R&B, mix in some Euro-techno-pop, a dash of aggressive riff-rock, a bit of art school performance, and an inclination toward expansive, progressive sounds suggest the spicy center. These forces are all competing for dominance—winner take all in a vibrant if chaotic stew that is only tamed by the soulful melodicism driven on the voice of Meany, which tends to hold these compositions together.

That and the absolutely driven beats and percussion of Darren King, which somehow turns nearly every song into a dance track, and you have a band that deserves mention alongside Wilco and Radiohead. These arty, fun outliers have got the goods to go the distance, and "Odd Soul" goes a long way to proving that point.

All the more fun and interesting to me, as a veteran exile from the clutches of a fundamental firebrand expression of conservative Christianity, is the way they turn to face the demons of their own religious upbringing and influences. This is a bit ironic in light of Meany's brief tenure in the contemporary Christian band, Earthsuit, and MuteMath took its record company to court around the time of their self-titled debut to avoid being marketed as or to the Christian music marketplace.

Perhaps there's enough water under that bridge for Meany to suggests in the album's bio that these lyrics came from "our weird religious roots… what you might call eccentric Christianity." "Writing this record," he explains, "gave us a new appreciation for it… I am proud to have been raised in an environment that valued intensity, that felt it was important to have something to get all worked up over, that allowed music to be spontaneous and loud and innocent."

So if the music sounds like a band of odd souls trying to break loose, break through to the other side, well, they seem to come by in naturally. Of course, there's real repression, too—pressure to fit in, demands for conformity. "Why can't you be more like your older brother… why can't you do a little more for Jesus?" asks the voice in "Blood Pressure."

These internal tapes can leave a person feeling as if they are "Walking Paranoia," a song that warns of the immediacy of the rapture, fresh from the headlines of last year. "I'm a nervous wreck, Jesus is coming back going to catch me at the porno rack," Meany grimaces as he sings, caught in the act, "say your prayers or burn and rot, gotta move fast when you're on the spot. Better get right or get left."

But it's not all judgment and anxiety for these "fish out of water" ("Quarantine"), there's also a community of care and support where folk find "faith in each other" ("Equals"). There's the promise of redemption "I've changed" and if not complete escape the rapturous feelings of "One more feeling, one more high" ("One More"). At their hearts, the title track finds more prodigals looking for a "home," a place of acceptance that connects the spiritual with human honesty and integrity.  Hmm… I think I know a place like that.

In case you missed it, here's a link to my review of MuteMath's fine '09 release, "Armistice," and a story about the first time I saw them play live.

Evanescence
Evanescence  (Wind Up)

Amy Lee's Goth-metal rooted hard rock band Evanescence grew to national attention in 2003 with their debut, "Fallen." The album sold over 15 million copies and dominating rock radio with winning singles like "My Immortal" and "Bring Me to Life." The band was nominated for five Grammy Awards, and walked away with "Best New Artist" and "Best Hard Rock Performance."

Accompanying those early singles were a number of fans in the contemporary Christian music world, seeing spiritual references throughout the band's songs and with their label promoting their singles on Christian rock stations and sending their albums into Christian music retail outlets. In time, Lee broke away from those associations, blaming that connection largely on her collaborator, Ben Moody, who left the band in 2003 and now writes and plays in the band We Are the Fallen, with another female singer Carly Smithson, and two other musicians from Evanescence.

In essence, Lee has rebuilt the band around her own voice and tastes, and it's all pretty predictable modern pop/metal. There's enough piano here and there alongside the mountainous guitar and drum beds and strings to suggest why there were early comparisons to Tori Amos. The songs tend toward lyrical as well as musical clichés, loners looking for love, healing from broken hearts, and to serve the Goth romance with death, the hope that we'll be reunited on "The Other Side."

Lee has a lovely vocal instrument, and occasionally the classical/metal sound comes together in a nearly progressive moment that hints at the veteran 70's band Renaissance. But frankly, not often enough.

Hats Off to the Bull
Chevelle  (Epic)

The first time I saw the sibling rock trio dynamo that is Chevelle was on a Gospel Music Association stage at their yearly convention, fronting their soon to be released Squint Entertainment 1999 release, "Point #1." That album won the GMA Dove award for Hard Music Album the next year, but eventually the band stepped away from anything resembling contemporary Christian music.

In interviews the Loeffler's have referred to themselves as "recovering Catholics," whose "faith is still extremely important to us," although not something they address directly in the rather oblique lyrics on their songs.

"Hats Off" is the sixth album from the trio, with bassist (and brother-in-law) Dean Bernardini replacing youngest brother Joe Loeffler back in 2006. The current Chevelle sound remains melodic hard rock, with big walls of sound that ebb and flow to leave room for singer Pete Loeffler's haunted vocal howls.

While listening, I often find I can't quite make out the words, but then when I read along with the lyrics I find I have few clues what they're really about. Maybe there's a reflection on the seven deadly sins going on in tracks like "Envy," "Revenge" and "Pinata," a song essentially about lust and desire.

Who knows exactly? But the sound is raw, honest and aggressive, and when they sing about getting forced "Face to the Floor," I'm pretty sure that it's not a good thing. And, it's not good to be another of the "Clones." Again, Chevelle dodges that albatross.


The Rev. Brian Q. Newcomb is Senior Minister at David's UCC in Kettering, Ohio, and a long-time music critic published in Billboard, CCM Magazine, Paste, The Riverfront Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among others. Additional content from Brian is available in his Quincessentials  blog.