Title: In Motion
Artist: Copeland
Singer Aaron Marsh says where Copeland's 2003 full-length, Beneath Medicine Tree, was designed to move people, its follow-up was made to make people move. It's a little distinction that's sure to rile a lot of people that didn't think there was much room for improvement after the first album's near perfect balance of raw emotion and breath-taking melody. But get past the brash punk-pop of tracks such as "Your Love Is A Fast Song" and "Pin Your Wings," and the same wounded heart that was beating behind the debut lurks underneath the noise and confusion of In Motion--in epic, orchestral songs like "Kite" and "Sleep." Marsh's dependence of lyrical clichés is slightly disappointing, as is Ken Andrew's overdone production, but overall this is the sound of a band moving forward. --Aidin Vaziri
Review by
JACOB SAHMS
Copeland’s In Motion wants to put its hands on love to hold it, define it, and put a name there for all to see. In “No One Really Wins,” love takes center stage as the singer urges his beloved not to make any changes to prove herself but to just let go. “I hope that you look back before you go ‘cause grace looks back before it starts to leave…In the endless fight of grace and pride I don’t want to win this time.” In any relationship, the fragile balance between boundaries and complete interaction includes the balance of grace and pride. Grace is the thing that brings two people closer than their humanness allows.
This understanding continues in “Choose the One Who Loves You More.” Fear of the unknown is blamed for keeping us in the dark about each other, and our ‘beautiful secret lives.’ Copeland urges the listener to “Choose the one who loves you more./And when you’ve found something to die for. They’ll be knocking on your heart’s door.” How much significance does ‘the one’ hold? Is it the one of two or THE ONE that remains forever, alpha and omega, beginning and end? Who are they who come knocking? It seems that the opportunities abound—when you choose that person/other who loves you more or most than any other, you escape the boundaries that keep your true self hidden. You becomes the core of who you are and you are willing to share that freely…when you are really loved.
“Kite” is unabashedly about a woman, from whom the singer hid out of failure and fear. Or is it fear of failure? “Oh my dear you’re a threat to the bad in us all./They tell themselves that each word from your lips or the grace in your eyes overcomes any fall.” Once again, the grace of the other rises above the situations that the singer has involved himself in out of fear. This female object of affection has the power to overcome ‘any fall’…Love rises above “The Fall,” right? Jesus Christ comes bodily to earth to shower grace over all of us and wash aside original sin as presented through the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
The expression of love that requires the action of the other rings out from “Don’t Slow Down” as well. “They say, I don’t know how to love the right way, but you make me feel…you make me feel like I do,” Copeland sings. Not only is love presented as self-sacrificing here but it shines by example and shouts to be heard above the murmuring of critics and judgmental views. Love is patient and kind…and leads by example? Copeland moves on in “Love is a Fast Song” to human-to-human love but the understanding is still that love is in motion and draws others to it.
Regardless of who Copeland is singing to and about, they love they present makes those around it better, draws them closer to truth and wellbeing, and helps them love themselves. That’s what Jesus did.
