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Numb Artist: Sycamore Label: True Tunes Records (2000) Length: 13 Tracks (53:04 minutes)

Goodness

The trio Sycamore traces its origins back to the Dallas area where its members began as a praise and worship ensemble.  Over the course of time, the group, which takes its name from the account of Zaccheus climbing the Sycamore tree in Luke's Gospel, gradually shifted their focus from performing worship music to writing their own material.  During the late '90s, the band released two independent albums, Shine Down in 1997 and Higher the following year.  The latest effort, Numb, continues the group's investigation of the modern pop/rock domain.  Sludgy, rough-hewn guitar hooks and a decidedly infectious melody line are joined with plaintive, flowing lyrics (You're floating away/ As the numbness sinks in/ You drift off/ To dream once again) to instill the stirring title track with a quality that is equal parts Smalltown Poets and Stone Temple Pilots.  "Truth in Eternity" sports similarly catchy melodic content together with bright, soaring vocals, tucking both neatly into the classic three-minute power pop song template.  And the feverish guitar runs of "Pieces" play perfectly against the song's delicate folk-rock backdrop to make it a shoo-in for the best-of-album slot.  

But Numb's bright spots are far outweighed by the album's preponderance of weaker material. Songs like "For This" are textbook examples of trite, by-the-numbers post-grunge rock, while entries such as "Higher" (Ooh, yeah, yeah/ I just want to go higher/ Ooh, yeah, yeah/ Higher and higher) work as their lyrically uninspired counterparts.  And "Empty" is simply a gratingly directionless tune that crumbles under the weight of its own dissonance.  In all fairness, a good number of the songs on Numb fall somewhere between the stellar quality of "Pieces" and the outright unpleasantness of "Empty" and "Higher."  And these tracks are, for the most part, on par with much of the music currently dotting the Contemporary Christian pop/rock music landscape. But, the songs themselves are still, by and large, mostly forgettable derivatives of the work of any number of Sycamore's more tuneful and lyrically inventive contemporaries.  Given Numb's nearly hour long running time, it's safe to say that the band probably overextended themselves in composing the lengthy work and that a liberal pruning of its tracks would doubtless make for at least a modestly more consistent listen.

Bert Gangl 3/17/2001