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More music reviews from Ron today…I got some cash for my birthday, and I used some of it to pick up Derek’s new CD “The Ringing Bell” from iTunes.

I’ll be totally honest here. I like Derek. He’s a great guy, and he’s doing some great things with his music, but I don’t always immediately fall in love with his stuff. There are at least 2 reasons for this: I’m not familiar enough with him and his writing style, and his writing is far more intelligent than I’ll ever be.

Over the past 4 or 5 months, I’ve been consciously trying to get to know Derek’s music better. I can’t necessarily make myself more intelligent, but I can try to appreciate good music, right? Well, I must be doing something right, because I absolutely loved “The Ringing Bell” from the first listen.

When trying to cram “The Ringing Bell” into a genre, I guess I’d call it a rock album. I can’t find another genre in my iTunes list where it would be a better fit, plus that’s what Derek calls it. I saw somewhere that some guy called it Alt Country, but I think that’s a wrong label. It sounds a lot like something The Beatles would have done, which makes me like it a little more.

Lyrically, “The Ringing Bell” is full of lines that make you think.

For example, the first verse and chorus from “A Love That’s Stronger Than Our Fear”

What would you do
if someone put a gun to your head
and asked you to tell them a lie?
What would you say
if you were pushed that way
to betray yourself to keep yourself alive?
Is life worth so much?

There’s got to be a love that’s
stronger than our fear
of everything being out of control

and “A Savior on Capitol Hill” is another of my favorites, which includes the lines

So come to DC if it be thy will
because we’ve never had a savior on Capitol Hill

and this one always makes me laugh, probably because it’s so true.

You can always trust the devil or a politician
to be the devil or a politician

I may break some world’s record for longest blog post if I mention all the noteworthy lyrics in this album, so I’ll not keep going. You can hear the whole album over at theringingbell.com if you’d like to try before you buy.  I suggest you do both.