Wilderness of Tekoa -- The Skies Pale in Comparison

7/10

I tried to keep it going. When I graduated from LSU not quite on time in December of 2004, I tried to keep the radio show, Soulglow, I DJ'd on the air. My good friends, alphabetically, Loti and Robker, had started the show 5 years before, eventually graduated themselves, and handed it off to me. Our relationship with our station, KLSU, was solid, but you have to be a student to DJ there, and my undergrad days were sadly over. My future wife had been doing the show with me my last year there, and she still had 1.5 years of college left, so I asked her to stay on and hoped she would keep it going. For a new co-host, I suggested my oft-here-talked about friend Jon (he was in the last review--hogging all the space as usual(he's tall)). Eventually, she graduated, and it was just Jon, and then, frankly, I'm not entirely sure what happened to the show. All I know is that, in the summer of 2009, Loti had the impression the show had ended, paid a visit to the studio, and took back our vast binders of CD's. 

While it may seem incredibly niche now, our show's specialty, Christian rock music, featured myriad artists. Between the late 90's and early 00's, Christian rock music blossomed, with both independent and corporately backed record labels putting out thousands of albums from hundreds upon hundreds of bands. Every subgenre, from straightforward rock, to punk, to ska, to even nu metal and heavy metal was well-represented. 
We never lacked for great music to choose from during the decade (possibly plus) life of our show. I've reviewed a good bit of those albums for this series. Several of them are among my favorites. Over the life of the show, thanks to eager and generous record labels, we had accumulated quite a few CD's (the dominant format in that period). Dave's thinking was correct--and if memory serves so, he asked for my opinion and I strongly concurred: Go get those CD's, man!!! 

If the show had ended, and we certainly thought it had, then our massive CD binders and bin were just waiting to be thrown out. We needed to save them. The thing is, though...unbeknownst to us, new, millennial hosts had kept Soulglow alive! And we had just taken all of their CD's! I think it's entirely possible we may have inadvertently killed our own show! We're sorry, Angel, who I believe was the name of the Soulglow host at that time! Our bad. 

But now (and to this day), Dave and I each have one-half of Soulglow's CD's. Perhaps the most fun element of getting them back was seeing the new additions. Indeed, record labels had continued to mail Soulglow their CD's. Unfortunately, through these CD's, you could literally see the Christian rock market mutate from a diverse, high-quality model, to one almost entirely geared toward slickly-produced worship music and metalcore. Ugh. Money, man. It ruins everything.

There were some good things we missed, though, and at this point in this incoherent ramble, I'll finally review something. 

Of those new discs I enjoyed, I have a particular fondness for the 2006 Northern Records release, The Skies Pale in Comparison, by the band Wilderness of Tekoa. Unfortunately, it appears that Wilderness of Tekoa showed up a few years too late to the party. If they'd put this album out in 2003, they might have drawn some serious attention. As it is, Skies Pale in Comparison's skillfully performed rock music is neither slickly-produced worship music, nor metalcore, so it never found a market. I struggled to even find track titles and song lengths online, and had to just pull them from my CD copy, which I moved from the binders to my own personal collection--sorry, Loti! And Robker! I definitely have had zero luck finding any info about this band as a whole, which is a shame, because I think they were really onto something, and probably would have done a great job had they the opportunity to record a second album. As it stands, Skies Pale in Comparison is their only release. 

This album starts off incredibly strongly, with "Elevate" going from a chiming intro, to an explosive chorus, showcasing this band's vocalist's ability to go from smoother, near brit-pop vocals, to a beautifully on-pitch scream. He doesn't utilize that scream often, but when he does, it's chill-inducing. The band are able to keep this energy going, with atmospheric, guitar-effect heavy second track, "Poetry." Unfortunately, though, the energy eventually starts to flag a little, as the majority of the rest of the album is slightly more run-of-the-mill. The band do nail another stunner, though, and the vocalist does his cool scream trick, on album finale, "Teach Me to Break." So overall, Skies Pale in Comparison is a solid album, and a promising debut. Unfortunately, this band's career ended as abruptly as our show (at some point) did. Who knows where they could have gone from here...and here's to uncertainty.


2006 Northern Records
1. Elevate 4:09
2. Poetry 4:10
3. Slow Down the Trend (If I) 4:03
4. Spiders 3:08
5. Midnight Lights 5:09
6. Your Place In the Ground 4:38
7. Love & Hate 3:53
8. Asleep 3:19
9. The Least of These 4:36
10. One at a Time 3:19
11. Sunbeam 3:44
12. Teach Me to Break 3:58 7.