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After pulling down fourteen Christian Radio chart-topping hits, album sales of over five million units, a set of tour dates with Sting, any number of Grammy and Dove Awards and nearly unprecedented mainstream success, one might well wonder what there is left for Greenville, Illinois' most famous musical sons to do.  Perhaps answering the inevitable question of a live project or a greatest hits compilation, the foursome has, in a manner of speaking, combined the two formats for Furthermore, a double-CD collection featuring studio tracks, live cuts and three new compositions.

The bulk of the studio disc is built around retooled versions of existing songs.  The upright bass and brushed percussion of "Overjoyed" lend the piece a mellow, jazz-club-at-closing sort of feel that nicely complements the tone of its more animated predecessor.   The spirited, slightly metallic acoustic guitar of "Something Beautiful," by contrast, instills it with an immediacy and vigor not completely realized in the first version.  The mellow pop/rock of "The Eleventh Hour" is steered down a slightly folkier avenue thanks to a sparkling spot of hammered dulcimer work.  And the bounding, highly rhythmic "Liquid" is redone in a solemn, almost dirgelike fashion that perfectly highlights the inherent starkness of its moving crucifixion account.

Where lead-off live CD entries like "Disappear" and "Like A Child" show the foursome well up to the task of replicating the shimmering, harmony-laden pop of its first four releases, the latter portion of the in-concert disc finds the band stretching out and hitting its proverbial stride.  "I'm Alright" adds a bluesy, funkified intro and Gospel-tinged call-and-response section to its already earnest predecessor.  "Revolution," likewise, ups the ante on the crunching guitar textures of its sprightly forerunner.  And the nearly eleven minute "Worlds Apart" transitions beautifully from its intimate acoustic guitar-driven lead-in to a rousing, all-out midpoint crescendo before tapering back to a chorus of hushed and reverent "hallelujah's" by song's end.

To be fair, the newly-penned "The Valley Song" does come across as overly repetitive and largely undistinguished.  And two new renditions of The Eleventh Hour album's title cut is at least marginally superfluous.  That said, the overwhelming majority of the Furthermore effort finds the Jars collective taking the high road of reinvention, rather than mere rehash, when it comes to its previously-released material.  And the remaining two new cuts, "Redemption" and "Dig," feature a stark, semi-oblique lyrical style that places them among the most engrossing entries in the band's ever-growing repertoire.  While the new project arguably falls just shy of essential listening, it nonetheless offers a solid and engaging overview of the Jars of Clay catalog and stands as clear and striking proof of its authors' undeniable talent and ongoing artistic inventiveness.

 Bert Gangl 3/17/203