Philly locals and one-time Simple Way inhabitants, mewithoutYou, released their new album “it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright” earlier this summer and I got a chance to attend their first gig promoting their new album right in the heart of Philly.  The show was at the Trocadero theater in what I think is the Chinatown section of Philly.  Just a day before the show, my copy of “it’s all crazy!…” came in the mail, so I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 hours to digest the new album before going to see it performed live.

Not known for their conventional approach, mewithoutYou has attracted an intense following through their hard, driving guitars, lead vocalist Aaron Weis’ rag doll stage dancing antics, and perhaps most of all through their artfully thoughtful lyrics.  Lyrics so thought-provoking and dripping with imaginative imagery and even biblical references that I was dumbfounded to learn they were a “Christian” band, whatever that means.  As Derek Webb might point out here, what’s more important than the label that puts out their music is that they are committed followers of Jesus, and they happen to create really stinking good art.  No “Christian band” label needed thank you very much.  Songs off their third album “Brother, Sister” like “In a Sweater Poorly Knit” and “A Glass Can Only Spill What it Contains” still have me thinking.

Not to be guilty of repeating their formula, “it’s all crazy!…” takes the unconventional approach to new heights.  The once post-hardcore (I say that like I really understand it… ha ha) band has mellowed their sound a bit, but on many of the tracks they traded in poetic theology for pure narrative… of the Aesop’s fables variety.  Songs on “it’s all crazy!…” venture into stories about foxes outwitting pastry-stealing crows, to stories of bees mystified by a farmer’s pile of burning leaves.  One song in particular about a conversation the angel of death has with a reluctant King David has stuck with me.

“it’s all crazy!…” is both less and more accessible all at once and it’s taking me much longer to digest, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.  Oh, and if you ever get a chance to see mewithoutYou perform live, do so!  They put on an impressive show, but I was almost as impressed with the packed-out house that already knew the all the lyrics to the album we all got the day before in the mail.