Music Banter - Phil Maderia Hymns for the rest of us

Hiya,
New here! Thought I'd post my recent review of the wonderful Phil Maderia album 'Hymns for the rest of us'.

Not sure who has all heard it but be great to get folks take on it!
Thanks

Esther

Mercyland Hymns For the Rest of Us- Phil Madeira – Album Review

“Not all hymns are found in the pocket on the back of the church pew,” (Emmylou Harris)

It’s always nice when an artist lets you get that bit closer to the creative process. One such artist is Nashville legend Phil Madeira. Phil has released a brand new album Mercyland- ‘Hymns for The Rest of Us’ – out April 24. This record also includes some very special musical collaborators.

The album features, in Phil’s words, “bone chilling, soul-stirring music” and it is a much needed message for our times. Some good ol’ food for the soul, it speaks to the heart the way the the best kind of music does. The songs are honest, straightforward, moving, human and spiritual, and deliver a powerful message that means the door stays open rather than closed. The pervasive feeling throughout “Hymns for the Rest of Us” is of being included rather than excluded. The story this album lets us know, without a doubt, that we are all being welcomed in.

On this project Phil collaborates with The Civil Wars, Shawn Mullins, Buddy Miller, Cindy Morgan, T Dan Tyminski and Emmylou Harris among others. I think you can feel the warmth of some of theses friendships right there in the songs and recordings… I’d certainly love to get these guys around my kitchen table! The album opens up with ‘From The Valley’ with the ever enchanting ‘The Civil Wars’. It sets the album up perfectly musically and lyrically. There is a searching and a longing in the vocals from Joy Williams and John Paul White that reach out, tug at the heartstrings and captivate right from the opening line
“Oh the desert dreams of a river that will run down to the sea…”

Shawn Mullins then growls his way through ‘Give God the Blues’. To me this is the song that is the blueprint for the album. The idea of ‘Hymns for the rest of us’ is that spirituality is not a
club that you belong to where some are in and others are out, but rather that there is wide, open invitation to all “God loves everybody, but we all give God the blues”

“Emmylou is not particularly religious. But when the language of faith is loving and poetic, and when Jesus is allowed to stand without the props of exclusivity, not as a dashboard statuette, but as an open-armed lover of souls, one need not be religious to find Him appealing.”