From the first strum of a jangly acoustic guitar on Out of Body‘s, Mercy’s Shore, I was hooked hard.
The raw vocals, the carefree beat and melancholic musing, the hope and pain all mixed together in a southern Americana sound, wake you up from a rut that only quarantine can create.
Some albums just come at the perfect time in life. In the marathon that has become 2020, NEEDTOBREATHE was exactly the music I need: spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.
Where the band has been hesitant to lean into overt religious messages in the past, it was encouraging to hear songs like Mercy’s Shore speak candidly of our vulnerability before a perfect God. Heaven is not a place we earn our spot; it is grace that washes our shipwrecked lives onto the white sandy shores of paradise and God’s presence.
The song ends with a poignant reminder that we need to rest in our Father’s warm embrace and worry a little less about the online animosity that so quickly becomes our pastime in a pandemic, where there are “fights that only fools are still trying to fight.”
Elsewhere, standout track Survival reminds us that we are a people “in need of a constant revival” with a terrific hoedown featuring the pairing of Drew & Ellie Holcomb.
Finally, what I love about singer Bear Rinehart is his ability on this album to weave between writing about intimacy with God and tender love songs for his wife. As he sings on Banks, “I wanna hold you close but never hold you back/Just like the banks to the river.”
Out of Body
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