Lots of musicians like to experiment with sound — to push the boundaries of the possible while still connecting with a wide audience. Singer-songwriter Derek Webb may have come of age in largely acoustic music, from his time with the contemporary Christian group Caedmon's Call. But his work in recent years has become increasingly modern and adventurous, most notably on the recent Stockholm Syndrome.
The adventurism may be more noticeable to longtime Webb fans than to listeners of, say, Portishead or DJ Shadow, but he's still traversing fresh territory in songs like "Black Eye." And he's still keeping his eye on the most important part of his job: crafty, sturdy songwriting. The beauty in "Black Eye" lies not in its inventiveness, but in its ability to weave Webb's lyrics — which vacillate between the ethereal and the paranoid — into a boundary-pushing sound.
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