Artist – Audrey Assad
Album – The House You’re Building
Label – Sparrow Records
Street Date – July 13, 2010
Album Length – 11 Tracks. 42 Minutes 53 Seconds
Genre – Pop/Rock
IPod Pick – Everything is yours
It’s rare for an artist to give you a straight walk through their heart. In the mainstream market, the few who allow the listener to come have a drive through the avenues of their emotions and desires in the form of cathartic song writing (artist such as Pink and Adele) have been known to produce edgy and dark lyrics that might get some listeners doing a reverse before getting to the third house (third track to be précised) of the heart avenue one has been given a privilege to enter.
On ‘The House you’re building’ 27 years old Audrey Assad puts cathartic song writing to an edifying use. Audrey’s music sounds like what you would have if C.S. Lewis did lyrics and Nichole Nordeman does the Piano with an Arabic throwback tune. We see Miss Assad opening up her avenue with Thanksgiving on the first track (For the love of you) singing ‘You are the highway I travel. . . . You live in a million places. . . For the love of you I’m a sky on fire’. The second house on her avenue gets us hearing very mellow catchy beats, something artiste such as Plumb and Alanis Morissette might just use on a less major track for a major hit album with lyrics like ‘I’m a broken stone so lay me in the House you’re building’. Speeding it up a bit to the fourth house ‘everything is Yours’ which is a heart cry of surrender is beautiful in its entirety. We find Audrey praying on ‘Restless’ ‘and I’m restless. .till I rest in you’. It’s a song inspired by a thought from Saint Augustine. ‘Carry Me’ starts with lyrics that gets us thinking ‘Pain is a forest we all get lost in’. Musically ‘Ought to be’ sounds different from every other song on this album and maybe should have been reserved for another project. ‘Known’ follows in the same heart cry of ‘Everything is yours’ but with a different perspective.
When asked by New Release Tuesday about the inspiration behind the stark imagery of the song ‘Breaking Through’ which was written with producer Marshall Altman (who has also worked with artist like Natasha Beddigfield, Bethany Dillon and Marc Broussard) she comments “That’s been my journey the last few years, learning to believe that and walk in that acceptance of God choosing me,” she says, musing, “That’s what my journey will probably always be. The first reason I write songs is to preach to myself”. The ‘House you’re building’ though not perfect in its entirety is something to believe in. Miss Assad has shown us on this one that she’s a work in progress and we can’t wait to see the great things God would continue to do through her come her next album but before then ‘The House you’re building’ is worth the walk. Come walk Miss Assad’s avenue, it might just surprise you when you start finding buildings that look the same.
