Pioneer is Cory Asbury’s fourth album, released last month.
You might know Cory from his 2018 song Reckless Love (a certified Triple Platinum), but his latest release enters new territory.
The music makes me feel like putting on a cattleman hat and riding into the sunset with the acoustic fingerpicking and rousing guitar slides. The tempo is slow, the lyrics introspective, and the melodies soulful.
I was surprised by some of the lyrics. They’re raw and emotional. In lines like "sometimes marriages don't work, and sometimes babies die, sometimes rehab turns to relapse and you're left just askin' why”, he sings about some of the most painful parts of human existence.
Cory’s embrace of deeper, more vulnerable themes doesn’t negate his faith but is, I think, a profound expression of it.
“Most Christian music is so cookie-cutter,” he wrote on the day he released Pioneer. “We pretend like everything’s fine when our houses are burning down. What if we just said, hey, my house is burning. Can you come help me put it out? And even if you don’t help me, at least come sit by it with me and watch it burn. We can roast some s’mores together in the embers and talk about how your house is burning too.”
The title track Pioneer is a good example of this.
Free me from this fortress
This prison that I've made
With my civilised salvation
And my white picket fence of faith
It seems to summarise the album’s angst toward the superficial portrayal of faith often associated with Christian culture. It’s a risk to step outside of that fence, but he continues:
My eyes on the horizon
I cannot settle here
How could I die in safety?
I was born a pioneer
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Pioneer is Cory Asbury’s fourth album, released last month.
You might know Cory from his 2018 song Reckless Love (a certified Triple Platinum), but his latest release enters new territory.
The music makes me feel like putting on a cattleman hat and riding into the sunset with the acoustic fingerpicking and rousing guitar slides. The tempo is slow, the lyrics introspective, and the melodies soulful.
I was surprised by some of the lyrics. They’re raw and emotional. In lines like "sometimes marriages don't work, and sometimes babies die, sometimes rehab turns to relapse and you're left just askin' why”, he sings about some of the most painful parts of human existence.
Cory’s embrace of deeper, more vulnerable themes doesn’t negate his faith but is, I think, a profound expression of it.
“Most Christian music is so cookie-cutter,” he wrote on the day he released Pioneer. “We pretend like everything’s fine when our houses are burning down. What if we just said, hey, my house is burning. Can you come help me put it out? And even if you don’t help me, at least come sit by it with me and watch it burn. We can roast some s’mores together in the embers and talk about how your house is burning too.”
The title track Pioneer is a good example of this.
Free me from this fortress
This prison that I've made
With my civilised salvation
And my white picket fence of faith
It seems to summarise the album’s angst toward the superficial portrayal of faith often associated with Christian culture. It’s a risk to step outside of that fence, but he continues:
My eyes on the horizon
I cannot settle here
How could I die in safety?
I was born a pioneer
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
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