The liner notes describe Obadiah Parker as: Mat Weddle (vocals, guitar), Jessie Young (keyboards, vocals, trumpet) and Daniel Zehring (bass guitar, vocals). Generally speaking, however, if you refer to Obadiah Parker, you are referring to Weddle. With the exception of the last track, the album was recorded live at First Baptist Church of Scottsdale, and it is distributed via Obadiah Parker’s website.

If it were not for the audience in between tracks, you would not have any idea that this was a live recording. The sound quality is quite good, and really, you can barely hear the audience. In fact, I became offended that they were not louder than they were after some of the amazingly performed songs, until I realized that it was just recored that way. This album 11 tracks, with a nice mix of 4 covers, and 7 originals. The originals have varying degree of liturgical subject matter, some lacking any obvious references all together. The album is near perfect. Weddle is a fantastic vocalist and all tracks have the potential for at least a line to be stuck in your head. Even if music with religious themes is not your thing, it is not overwhelming, and you can simply apply a more general meaning to your life (being lost, losing your way). A few of the tracks have a jam-folk feel with a trumpet to kind of stamp a southwestern feel to it, which make a sound not often heard in this genre. Lyrics are reflective, sometimes melancholy but optimistic and always intelligent. Weddle writes the music and lyrics and is quite gifted. Equally impressive are the covers. Included on this album are I Can’t Stop Thinking About It (Dirtbombs), Who is It (Bjork), Idioteque (Radiohead) and Hey Ya! (Outkast) which you may have seen the YouTube video of (the album version is not of that recording). Idioteque is a complete opposite of the original; it sounds more “mechanical” and relies less on played instruments than Parker’s version. Weddle sounds as if he is performing this song to save a life; in the second chorus you can feel his emotions and words in your chest burning you with his signature as if he wrote them, rather than Radiohead. The first time I heard this I was compelled to listen to it a few more times, to make sure in my being awestruck I hadn’t missed anything. Weddle uses this same emotional approach to most all songs on the album, which contributes to it’s near flawlessness. Yougn and Zehring are excellent as well and should not go without being mentioned.

My only real issue with this album is that the pace tends to stay the same, track to track, and sometimes one can get annoyed at this sort of thing and either stop listening or become distracted.

Standout tracks: Kimberlina, Six or Seven, Idioteque

This is a fine album indeed and Obadiah Parker is quite underexposed. Here is the video in which he was first noticed. It is recorded at an open mic night at a coffee house on a video camera. It is the best version of the song. There are 3 (so far, including this one).