Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

When the dust settles and the smoke clears, the powers that be have no clue what to do with Inspirational/Christian music. Part of this is willful ignorance: they don’t want to know about it, and they don’t want you to know about it, either. Here is the logic: they don’t play it and if you buy it they ignore it and don’t report it so wow, they were right, weren’t they? The New York Times Book Review played this same game for years on their best seller list until the LEFT BEHIND series became such a phenomenal success that they finally had to note the presence of the elephant in the living room that they had been ignoring. The same thing, happened, music-wise, with Creed. Rickie Lee Jones’ new disc reflects her new-found conversion, and Bono? The drunken little Orangeman has been slipping subliminal messages of faith into U2’s music for years. But there is a lot of contemporary inspirational music out there that you haven‘t heard, and a lot of it is very, very good.

You can file Chase Thompson in that category. Thompson has a fine tenor that is perfectly suited for his self-composed material on SHOOT YOU DOWN. Just a couple of years out of high school, there is nonetheless a quiet maturity and gravitas that informs his work, as befits its subject matter. The arrangements are simple enough --- Thompson on vocals and piano, augmented by synthesizer, guitars and bass --- and reflect a confidence in Thompson’s composing abilities that is ultimately demonstrated. He makes excellent use of dynamics on tunes such as “Hollow/We Are Lifted” and “Lifeless” but is not afraid of quiet, reflective tunes such as the title track. Thompson does not proselytize --- and quite honestly, that should not be of concern, given the topics explored within the balance of popular culture --- and one could easily confuse it with the best of adult contemporary music that is out there right now.

SHOOT YOU DOWN goes down easy and smooth, an addiction that is actually good for you. Ballads that will wake you up. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all.