Ordinary Time offers up simple melodies with a profound message

By D.S. Martin and ChristianWeek | May 22, 2009

It's hard to explain why I was so excited on first hearing the opening bars of "Who will roll away the stone?" the first song on Until He Comes by Ordinary Time. It must come from having heard many less-interesting recordings from outfits with far more music industry-savvy, that I was caught, sad to say, with little expectation.

Until He Comes is a 13-track CD of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs recorded with simple folk arrangements that are dominated by voices—both solo and harmonizing—and usually accompanied by mandolin or acoustic guitar.

The album conjures images of the three band members—Peter La Grand, Ben Keyes and Jill Zimmerman—out on the porch, singing songs in the starlit night to the maker of the starlight, or perhaps having slipped inside to gather around an upright piano in the parlour. They make me think somewhat of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, but with no sign of their Nashville cool, or perhaps an outfit of academically trained panhandlers.

Take one part 1960s folk trio, one part 1940s bluegrass band and one part small town church musical feature and you might have some idea—if you make your participants artistic, intelligent people of faith. I add this because there is an unconscious sophistication—or a deliberately suppressed sophistication—that pervades these recordings. Every word, whether written by the band and their friends or selected from centuries-old hymns, has been carefully weighed.

Ordinary Time has a way of making their own compositions sound like songs with years of tradition behind them—although not through song structure, for they aren't all hymn-like in their flow: "He has risen from the grave / You'll find him on the road / You'll find him at your table / He has risen from the dead."

It's the way they're sung: sometimes with a repeating harmonized refrain like in 1970s California rock, and sometimes with a touch of twang like a depression-era string band. Some songs sound Celtic or have an Anglo-clerical solemnity. Some have a troubadour's simplicity.

They also have a way of making the hymns they sing, no matter how familiar, sound almost like these are the long-lost original versions. "Come thou fount of every blessing" sounds straight out of the Ozarks with its mandolin and fiddle. Other familiar hymns include: "May the mind of Christ, my Saviour," "Of the Father's love begotten," and Isaac Watts' "How sweet and awesome."

The lyrics to their original songs carry a weight that increases with reflection. Ben Keyes has written in his song, "Following":

No other man could still the storm
Seething, surging, settling down
No other God could step onboard
With eyes to sleep and lungs to drown
Safer to face the sea's cold embrace than him.

What he shows us is how hard it would have been for one such as Simon Peter to follow. "Your burdens are light / But your blessings are heavy / Almost too weighty to bear." There are so many deep lines in this song that I'm tempted to quote it in it's entirety.

The title track, written by Peter La Grand, is really a rewriting of part of Lamentations 3:

I will wait on the Lord
Until He comes to make me whole
His promise is my hope.

Scripture is the direct inspiration for most songs—either arising from stories or echoing such poetic passages.

This CD is the followup to their equally beautiful, and equally unmarketed, Christmas album, In The Town Of David. Peter La Grand also has a solo album available, entitled Duende. Although they haven't mastered the distribution aspect, you can still download or order their music from: www.ordinarytimemusic.com. I suggest that you do.