Mikey Reviews: Benjamin William Hastings
Kicking off what I hope is the first of many album reviews is Benjamin William Hastings (BWH) self-titled debut, released on November 4th, 2022. If you aren’t familiar with that name, you’ve probably listened to his voice or sang his songs. As a member of the Hillsong family, he has quickly written or co-written many hit songs including “So Will I”, “O Praise the Name (Anástasis), and “Highlands (Song of Ascent)”. However, his debut is a bit of a departure from the CCM roots that provided his platform. Instead, Hastings hones his poetic voice and breaks down the stereotypes that define what it means to be a Christian artist. He invites us into his triumphs and struggles, all the while keeping the focus on Jesus. The result is a deeply personal album filled with unbridled creativity.
The first aspect of the project I love is its arrangement. If you intend to listen to this album, you should listen to it in order. Album composition and arrangement has become somewhat of a lost art with the rise in streaming. When it does happen, we should pay attention to its intention. By listening in order, you learn that BWH contains full-length songs interspersed with short vignettes. Consider the opening track, “Hold Onto Your Hats”. It contains very little production, yielding a raw and unedited sound. Hastings’s opening deep breath gives way to immediate vulnerability:
I haven’t written in forever…'Cause I'm so scared of inauthentic,
I've just not been sayin' anything.”[Lyrics]
As we’ll see later, this theme of self-doubt and questioning extends throughout the album.Yet,it is ultimately refreshing to hear this sentiment within what’s considered a “Christian album”. The final track’s vignette, “Glaciers and Rain”, literally picks up where the opening track ends, maintaining the same chords.This time, his sentiment is slightly different:
“And if You carved out every valley
Using glaciers and rain
Surely then I trust You'll guide me
For this lifetime of terrain.” [Lyrics]
The album begins with questioning the authenticity of his writing and the strength of his faith.But by the end, Hastings reminds us that in spite of what we may feel we can look to what God has previously done in our lives to give us hope for the future.
The second aspect of the project I love is Hastings’s vulnerability in his writing. I mentioned earlier that this project is a departure from the “Hillsong sound”, this being partly the reason. However, as I demonstrated with the intro and closer, every vulnerability is coupled with the attributes and adoration of Jesus. I love the way Hastings is able to weave those two tensions in harmony with his own symbolic and poetic lyricism. Within the album, there are two categories of vulnerability: within faith and within family. While there are many examples of both, I’ll highlight my favorite track from each category.
“The Jesus I Know” is both elemental in its simple production, but simultaneously so profound. Hastings employs the rhetoric of speaking directly to Jesus. While that technique has been done before, the lyrics break the mold. Conveying the dissonance between the image of Jesus in the world and the person of Jesus requires a certain boldness and lyrical deftness, both of which Hastings has. My favorite line is from the second verse where he says, “‘Cause I live off the good of Your name, And in some ways I profit the cross”. It’s self-aware, “fourth-wallesque”, and audaciously honest. When was the last time you heard a Christian artist point out the fact that they write and perform songs to make money? This is not your typical corporate worship song, but it’s still full of truth. For vulnerability in regards to family, my favorite track is “While I’m in the Wind”. Throughout the album, we catch a glimpse into his life as a father and traveling artist. This song is addressed to his young daughter, as a sort of explanation as to why he’s frequently absent. This is a contender for my favorite song on the album. It’s definitely Hastings’s best and most expansive vocal performance on the album (and maybe any recording of him I’ve heard). There’s a gutting irony when he mentions missing her third birthday because he was writing songs, maybe perhaps songs that are on this very album. And the faint echo of TAYA singing “So Will I” beautifully ties together the song’s theme of following God’s will in spite of life’s roadblocks.
I’ll take this moment to point out my other favorite tracks on this record. “Dancing with My Shadow”, with its upbeat “The 1975-ish” vibe and saxophone outro which I’m always a sucker for; “Not Even Once”, which may be the closest thing to a corporate worship song on the album; and “Cathedrals of Nelder Grove”, which might be my favorite lyrical moment on the album.When was the last time you heard an excerpt from an ecologist on a Christian album?
Now, no album is perfect, no review is complete without some subjective criticism.This inaugural review is no exception. My primary critique is that the album is a bit bloated in its length. I recommend that you listen to this album in one sitting, but that will require one hour and fifteen minutes out of your day. Since there are so many songs and so many themes being introduced and developed, the album seems out of focus at some points. Perhaps splitting the album into two parts, doing separate releases, or cutting certain tracks would have alleviated this issue and brought the album into a more singular focus.
In spite of that, Benjamin William Hastings is a solid debut and effectively establishes a personal voice of an artist previously in a group context. Weaving together personal and spiritual struggles and tensions while extolling the attributes of Jesus through complex imagery, Hastings gives us an exciting look of Christian music’s future.I hope other artists are bold enough to take the same leaps of faith
N.B. Since this is my first review, I haven’t developed a rating system yet, so for now, just take my word that this album is good and you should listen to it.