Caedmon's Call - Musical Evolution

Musical Evolution

Over the years, Caedmon's Call have enveloped and adapted many different musical stylings, the most obvious being their folk and alternative rock roots. On their first mainstream, self-titled release(Caedmon's Call), the band utilized stylings that ranged from straight-up folk-rock ("Lead of Love", "Coming Home"), rock ("Not the Land"), folk ("This World", "Bus Driver"), and simple acoustic guitar ballads ("Center Aisle").

Their second album, 40 Acres, made after the dissolution of Warner Alliance, has a more settled folk-rock sound. Songs such as the Derek Webb-penned "Thankful", for instance, took advantage of those folk-rock stylings, relying heavily on percussion.

Long Line of Leavers, their third wide-release album, became something of a milestone for the band, including a wider range of instrumentation and stylings. "The Only One" featured a brass accompaniment, something Caedmon's Call had never experimented with before, whereas "The Ballad of San Francisco" was debatably the most folkish song ever included on a Caedmon's Call album. "Prove Me Wrong" was a simple guitar-driven pop song, while "What You Want" stands in the tradition of "Not the Land" as upbeat rock-and-roll.

The albums In the Company of Angels: A Call to Worship and Back Home came during an interim phase in which Aaron Tate and Derek Webb were mostly inactive as writers for the band, Aaron only contributing lyrics for the song "Beautiful Mystery" on Back Home and Derek's wife Sandra McCracken contributing music and lyrics for "Awake My Soul" to that record as well. A diverse array of songwriters provided material for the band. These albums, while still largely driven by the acoustic guitar, were characterized by simpler lyrics and melodies than the band's past material, and more of an adult contemporary feel that did not sit well with most older fans. Many felt the source of the band's relevance to be the hard-hitting, deeply introspective lyrics penned by Tate and Webb, which often included common and obscure Biblical, historical, and popular references cast in new contexts. Caedmon's was often billed or described as "a thinking Christian's band." Lacking these kinds of lyrics, many fans began looking elsewhere.

In 2004, Share the Well proved to be a notable artistic leap for the band. Caedmon's Call decided to incorporate world music influences into the album during mission trips with Compassion International to India, Ecuador, and Brazil. The Indian influence was most prominent on this album, with several Dalit musicians providing instruments and vocals. In addition to Randall Goodgame, Josh Moore and Andrew Osenga emerged as the new primary songwriters for the band.

In 2006, Caedmon's released In the Company of Angels II: The World Will Sing. This sequel to the first In the Company of Angels was recorded despite the band's lack of desire to make the album under pressure from their record label. It was the last album that the band made for Essential Records, before parting ways with the label in May 2006. The band is now associated with INO Records, and named their fall 2006 tour "The Emancipation Tour"--possibly in part a reference to their split from their former label.

For most of the band's tenure, lead vocals were split somewhat evenly between Cliff Young and Derek Webb. Cliff would usually sing lead on the Aaron Tate songs (he does not usually write his own songs for the group, though he plays a large part in the arrangements), and Derek would sing lead on the songs that he wrote, which were often more personal in nature. Danielle typically sings lead on two to four songs per album; until 2010's Raising Up the Dead, "Piece of Glass" (co-written with Webb) was the only song that she had written for the band. Once Derek Webb ceased writing songs for the band in the years leading up to his departure, Cliff emerged as the primary vocalist for the band, a role which he retains today, though Danielle has been able to sing lead more frequently as a result of this. The band's newest vocalist, Andrew Osenga, sang lead four times on the first two albums he participated in; on the song "Bombay Rain" and the hidden track "I Miss You", both of which he wrote for Share the Well, and on "The Story" and "We Give Thanks", from In the Company of Angels II.

On May 22, 2007, it was announced in a press release that Caedmon's Call's first INO release, Overdressed, would be released in late August 2007. This same press release announced the return of Derek Webb to the band after a four-year absence. His replacement, Andrew Osenga, remained in the band as well. On the album Overdressed, Osenga was featured as the lead vocalist on 4 tracks.

In January, 2008 the band's song Ten Thousand Angels was featured in an episode of Grey's Anatomy (Season 4, Episode 11: Lay Your Hands On Me) while several different scenes played.

In August 2009, Andy Osenga announced that he would not be part of the next Caedmon's Call album, scheduled for sometime in 2010. Derek Webb remained with Caedmon's on this album as well. This album, titled Raising Up the Dead, was released for pre-sale on August 2, 2010 in a tiered pricing structure. Raising Up the Dead was an attempt to keep most of the songwriting in-house; Derek's wife Sandra McCracken was the only songwriter from outside the band to contribute to that album. Unusually, Danielle co-wrote and sang lead on six of the album's twelve songs, with the remainder of the lead vocals being evenly split between Cliff and Derek.

Caedmon's Call joined Brite Revolution and each month releases a new (or old, or rare) track, where they released a brief glimpse at their new album. Members of Brite can help support one of Caedmon's most passionate missions, the Dalit Freedom Network.