A Beautiful Piece of Heartache
The Music of Over the Rhine
Phil Christman
January 1, 2000
These days, when every other new band is un- or semi-plugged, and where Christian contemporary often really means simplistic and mediocre, it's easy to overlook a folk-rock group, especially one staffed by Christians. But Over the Rhine—a rootsy quartet named for their Cincinnati home neighborhood—puts the richly-deserved damper on such cynicism. For ten years they've produced folk music with thoughtful craftsmanship, while providing a songwriting model for Christian artists that eschews simple sermonizing for honesty and depth. That they've done so on a shoestring budget, to an audience accreted over years by word of mouth and constant touring, attests to their endurance.
Fans of the group can hope that their recent contract with Virgin Records—and the current stints of the band's leaders as touring members of Cowboy Junkies—means that Over the Rhine's greatest opportunities may be yet to come. In the meantime, we can rejoice that Virgin is re-releasing the group's back catalogue: Till We Have Faces (1991), Patience (1992), Eve (1994), and Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings (1996).
OTR's excellence, in a technical sense, comes from careful manipulation of the basic trappings of folk-rock (acoustic and electric guitar, introspective lyrics, piano, strings, mandolin, and the occasional saw), a quality that has come with time. On Till We Have Faces, singer Karin Bergquist's voice sounds thin next to the chunky guitar stylings of Ric Hordinski; the lighter, prettier tracks ("Eyes Wide Open"), meanwhile, sound shapeless without the forward charge of Hordinski's gut-bucket blues and Brian Kelley's drums. Things get better on Patience; Bergquist's range widens, thick enough to stand up to Hordinski's guitar on "Jacksie," while ...
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