You can't hold on forever.
I hope you know it's time to let this go.
You gotta run from yesterday,
Turn away from past mistakes
And leave them all behind
You're holding on too tight...
--"Run From Yesterday", High Flight Society
First thing's first: Go to this page before January 31, 2011, so High Flight Society can make another EP. Got it? Free songs closer to the bottom.
A new year and I figured I could work on my blog! Still haven't hashed out everything I'll write about, true enough, but one thing I do have quite a bit of interest in is Christian rock. It helped me emotionally around and following college, and it's been interesting to trace which songs were meaningful to me then, versus now.
Most the Christian bands I know of--and some you even hear on Air1--are pretty small outfits. Many of them tour the country with their van and their trailer, and then they set up and sound check their own equipment. Since I like harder music with good (and not filthy) lyrics, I tend to like the more independent bands. I actually came to love Christian rock from Effect Radio back in the day when it was in town (Air1, no relation, now has its 89.9 frequency).
High Flight Society is one of those smaller bands, and their story is one of the common ones. Put out a record on a small label; signed by a larger label; label has a shake-up and drops them before they even get a record out.
The whole world of business can be especially heartbreaking to be any sort of artist--musician, artist, writer. The one point of hope that any Christian artist has that others don't is knowing that if we're doing what God has led us to do, we can know that God's purpose has been accomplished. I find it comforting to know that no matter what your sales numbers are, perhaps God used your work to touch just one life. Given that I love to create, to me that potential is enough.
Back to music. After their first album, High Flight Society put out a short digital EP, "Par Avion," which has good songs and kind of hidden Christian messages (as most Christian rock does nowadays). The first track is a hard rock song, "Give It Up," which starts out with what I consider almost discordant beats, but it ends up working. "Inhaling a Bullet" has heavy guitars, not surprisingly. The "Whoa-oh, oh-oh"s kind of remind me of a 1980s song, in the best way. "Run from Yesterday" is both very catchy and works nicely on a Christian level, though I'm sure non-Christians could listen to it and not be overwhelmed. Definitely one of my favorites on the album. The closer on the general release of the EP is "Come on Sister," which is pretty low-key.
On top of that, there are two bonus tracks that you originally could only get by buying the download card at their concerts. (I may or may not have ducked out of my only sibling's wedding rehearsal dinner maybe an hour earlier than most in order to get to their concert and procure said card...) "Sanctuary" may be my favorite song on the EP; it's another of those songs that is Christian if you want it to be. It makes me want to write a spaceship/war story. Download it and maybe you'll get some ideas too! The final song is "Indecision" which is another hard-rock song.
Something else I'm generally interested in is FREE stuff! [b]You can get ALL SIX SONGS FREE from High Flight Society if you just give them your email address![/b] I would give my email address for "Sanctuary" alone, actually. (In fact, on 1/1/11 them my email myself to make sure it works. The whole process from submission to download took about 90 seconds. The download page might say it has 4 songs, but when I downloaded I got all 6!)
[b]And if you like the music, you can help them out by throwing them a few bucks via this page before January 31, 2011, so they can make another EP. You can even get their new EP free if you pledge! Your credit card will only be charged if they reach their goal, so go help them out![/b]
(FTC disclosure - I DID pay regular price for this EP in June 2009, and reviewed the copy I paid for. But you can get it for free as above.)
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