CHRISTIAN PARKER: THROUGH THE DARKNESS

Christian Parker grew up in a Northern town where winters start in October and end in May and the skies are so dark and so low you feel, after a while, like you live in an un-lit basement. If you don't have hobbies, some way to pass the time, you go crazy. Some go crazy anyway. Christian (Moe) Parker took up ice hockey about the same time he started to walk. When he wasn't practicing slap shots in the back yard rink, he was crouched over a turntable in the family rec room listening tohis older brother's BeatIe records. Pretty soon an acoustic guitar replaced the hockey stick as the weapon of choice, and by the time he was a senior in High School, Christian was playing gigs and writing songs. An album was recorded in a converted barn and sold in drug stores, dime stores, and even music stores, until every fan, friend and relative had a copy or two.

Now five years and fifty songs later, a new album, "Through The Darkness" has been completed. Produced and recorded in the same converted barn, this new release is miles beyond the first effort in every way.

I don't know how a guy born in 1968 could have absorbed so much 60's music. Osmosis? Time travel? Somehow this twenty something singer/songwriter has picked the bones of folk and pop classics and brought the influences of the Byrds and the Beatles to his own material in ways Tom Petty never dreamed of.

Yes there are jangling twelve strings and full-bodied acoustic guitars. Yes there are tight two part harmonies and a rock-solid rhythm section. But what is new, what makes this music unique, is Parker's point of view.

Christian Parker is not the angry young man sneering at the world. His tone is not bitter but resigned, as if the experiences he sings about have made him wiser. Some of the themes seem dark on first listening, but there is always light on the other side.

Half a Man -- a song about falling in love while your heart is still broken-- has a self-searching tone. But by the end of the song this bad situation is turned into an opportunity.

Road to Recovery likewise takes on a dark subject--in this case substance abuse and/ or the loss of love--and uses it to build strength.

Long Long Shadow is all about growing up in a small northern town and feeling trapped in the shadow of a strong and successful father. The powerful acoustic ballad Leaving Train offers a way out of the trap, but that too has its price.

Don't Give Up is a straight ahead pop song. It's as if Steve Forbert sat in with Buddy Holly and this is what came out. On one level the song describes the work and perseverence it takes to keep love going. But Parker and co-writer, Peter Pendras, said the song started out as a morale booster, a pep talk to themselves. The sub-text is this: When times are tough don't sell your guitar and get a job at the Hardware Store. Somehow find the strength to press on. 1 am glad they did.

Other songs are more diverse. After Changes sits squarely in the Simon and Garfunkel camp, with weaving acoustic guitar lines and atmospheric vocals. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the rocker, All My Love. Here the groove does all the talking.

Christian Parker, with his clean guitar picking and understated vocals, is a welcome antidote to the grunge rock that seems to be boiling out of every basement these days. His music is polished but not too pretty, with the steady twitch of Rock and Roll pounding beneath the surface rhythms and sparkling guitars.

This artist is young, not yet jaded. He can sing about loss, mishaps, breakdowns, and still sounds strong enough to keep going, even shading the bittersweet melodies with a hint of optimism.

For Christian Parker these songs are not about the end of anything, but the beginning of something better.