Genres are a bit of fiction, aren’t they? I mean really, can any single artist or album be completely confined within one genre? For that matter, a 99 cent download of one song doesn’t fit neatly into one category either. So perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s a bit of fiction to place Fictionist in one part of the Spectrum. However, given the constraints of this continual project called Music Spectrum, I most of the time endeavor to put artists in one category of a Spectrum of my own creation (see sidebar for classifications). In this case, Fictionist lands in the Folk-influence American Rock section with lots of sounds overflowing into other categories.
Fictionist’s album, Lasting Echo, opens with “Always,” a Folk-influenced American Rock with a hard-edged jam atmosphere. “Human Wings” has a driving, rolling rhythm with a bluesy guitar hitting a stratus cloud wind. Then swinging a groove on that lead guitar, “Blue-Eyed Universe” is a Beatles/XTC pop rock. “The Well-Made Shadow” has slowcore meanderings and atmospherics, but with a melody line like Hall & Oates pop balladry.
“Time to Time” shows a John Mayer-like jamming singer/songwriter sound (perhaps also like the lesser known Mark Croft). There’s some hard-edged jam here also that really hits a bluesy groove as lead singer Stuart Maxfield shouts out on the instrumental break that closes the song. “Deeper and Deeper” is a 70’s melancholic frolic in the sun-drenched fields of wildflowers which suddenly become the deep dark of night with millions of stars on display.
The most beautiful song here is “Human Wings” with lyrics that lift up, extol, and celebrate love, but could also with a gentle nudge be praising Jesus who came as a man with His full divine power:
Your voice the lasting echo
In the winter of my sorrows, you make all things new
Gracefully, gracefully, as gentle as, as gentle as a summer breeze
How you move in me so imperfectly
Tell me how you bring such heavenly things on those human wings.
Jesus comes on human wings as the true Son of God. His voice, His Word, the lasting echo across all generations. He makes all things new through forgiveness and baptism. He moves gracefully and gently in His people, applying His Good News of love. He moves in us imperfectly, since we in our sin still resist Him.
You need to hear the lasting echo of Fictionist as they have that driving, rolling rhythm that sends you skyward.
