GOSPEL (NOT GOSPEL) Bodies Of Water
Oct 29, 2008
They are spirits in the material world.
BY LAURA
LEEBOVE
An album solely about the creation of Earth doesn't seem atypical of a band whose members were raised in devout Christian households. Though Bodies of Water songwriter David Metcalf quickly found that idea too limiting, it did spark a couple of the tracks on the band's second LP, A Certain Feeling (Secretly Canadian).
The L.A.-based band's core members-Metcalf, his wife Meredith, Kyle Gladden and Jessie Conklin-express their faith in their music, but Metcalf says he doesn't really have a religious or political agenda. "I think that good art changes the way that you see the world," he says. "Nothing that I think politically has ever been affected by hearing a song."
The songs on the band's debut, Ears Will Pop and Eyes Will Blink, explored much of the spiritual world, a theme Metcalf says is less pronounced on the new album. A Certain Feeling, he says, "is more about moving through the world and actually being in the natural world and the manmade world." The album was recorded in the Metcalfs' home, where the band experimented with new percussion instruments-"various blocks and wooden things and metal objects," he adds, laughing.
It would be too easy and perhaps even ignorant to write off Bodies of Water as a less cult-like Polyphonic Spree or the Arcade Fire with fewer musicians. With a sound much greater than its four members, the group churns out intricate, gospel-inspired harmonies driven by a host of instruments-keyboards, horns, a clarinet, guitars. But the heart of the music always comes through in their voices.
"In that sort of rock music paradigm, there isn't a lot of precedent for a lot of people singing together," says Metcalf. "We listen to [gospel] and there's elements of that in what we do, naturally, just 'cause we do like it ... but it's not really similar to other gospel music."
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