Skillet -- Hey You, I Love Your Soul

9/10

It's a new millennium, and I've graduated from high school, and have recently re-centered my life around my Christian faith. I'm really jonesing to add some Christian music to my collection. I've got a few old Tooth & Nail Records albums by bands like Plankeye, and some P.O.D., along with stuff by mainstays like Newsboys and Jars of Clay, but that's about it. Then I remember it: my sister is in Columbia House Record Club, and she's ordered like 1,000 CD's from it, most of them Christian. She's living like a damn heathen, and way too cool for them, so she won't mind if I...just...confiscate a few. I nick a handful from her stash. One is a really great Tourniquet album. I'll get to that review one day. Another is Hey You, I Love Your Soul by Skillet. Aw, man, I remember Skillet. The vocalist has that whiny, scratchy, annoying voice, the music is generic, and look at this goofy album cover...what are they, jumping for joy? I think I'll pass. Then again, it's early summer, I've got three long months til college starts...so what else am I going to do?
I give it a go. Dude's voice sounds thicker...and the music...doesn't sound like their first album. It's got all these electronic elements, and quiet-to-loud dynamics, plus the quiet parts feature the kind of meditative ambient atmospherics I go nuts for. What is this strange, serendipitous alchemy?
Skillet's 1998 release, Hey You, I Love Your Soul, was only two years old when I discovered it. It's 20 years old this year, and considering Skillet completely changed gears and essentially disowned their prior work in 2003, it might as well be an artifact from another epoch. Hey, though, that's an epoch I'll live in. That late 90's-pre 9/11 00's keyboard tone is hard to beat on a pure spiritual level. It's like coming across a cool, canyon-shaded stream in a desert, one that hydrates this lovely album. Not many things are better than a well-watered desert.
Hey You, I Love Your Soul's title-track opener revs up with electronic noises, before a crunchy, heavy guitar part gives way to the keyboard heavy verses. Then the chourses come in full blast. The song is textured, dynamic, and atmospheric--check the spaciness of the bridge. There's a light, industrial sound at-play. People compared it to Nine Inch Nails at the time, but it's nothing that dark. This is an upbeat, high energy album. Even the ballads have an uptempo feel. The album flow is great as well, building to a climax in Peter Gabriel-conjuring "Coming Down," and bringing in the awesome, everything's gonna-be-okay piano and beat on the following, "Whirlwind." And sure, John Cooper's lyrics can be a little cheesy, but they're earnest. They sure hit the spot when I was seeking. I thought maybe the album would feel dated, coming back to it now, but it takes me back to that period in history, and in my own history in a special way. Even though Skillet didn't stick to this sound (and would never again perform as a three-piece), the sea-change in my spiritual life was lasting.


1998 Ardent/ForeFront
1. Hey You, I Love Your Soul 2:59
2. Deeper 3:48
3. Locked in a Cage 3:55
4. Your Love (Keeps Me Alive) 3:56
5. More Faithful 3:45
6. Pour 4:19
7. Suspended in You 3:09
8. Take 4:13
9. Coming Down 5:07
10. Whirlwind 4:02
11. Dive Over In 3:43
12. Scarecrow 4:17