Home

Album Review

On his fifth album, Australian expatriate Nathan Tasker, who relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2006, pursues a highly ecumenical brand of contemporary Christian music, one in which euphemisms largely replace religious specifics, perhaps in the name of expanding his message. Tasker sings in an earnest, breathy low tenor and comes up with AC/soft rock arrangements for his catchy tunes in the manner of, say, Sting. In his lyrics, he makes it clear that he has been a spiritual searcher, someone in need of direction, whose life has been a "mess." "What if this hole inside my heart/Never finds its missing part?," he ponders in "Find My Way Home." Within the context of CCM, believers will understand that when he uses words like "love" (as in leadoff track "Love Is the Compass" or the line "Give in to this love" in "Give In") or addresses an unnamed someone in "Something Beautiful," he is referring to the Christian God. But, though he does use words like "father," "pray," and "heaven" sparingly, he deliberately eschews spelling things out and, outside the context of CCM, one could hear a song such as "Love Me as I Am" or "Find My Way Home" without immediately being clued in to the religious intention, instead presuming that Tasker is singing about secular love. Most people aren't going to be confused, of course, and by sticking largely to abstractions, the singer/songwriter does not restrict himself to any particular brand of Christianity, which may broaden his appeal.