In 1969, while signed to Capitol Records, Larry Norman released Upon This Rock. It has been considered by some to be the first Christian Rock album. The album was a commercial flop, but it helped to launch a long and often controversial career with some highlights that include: releasing dozens of albums, playing for then-President Jimmy Carter and having numerous artists cover his songs (Dc Talk, Holy Soldier, Audio Adrenaline, Jordin Sparks, Etc.). Nearly nine years after his death, Larry Norman remains a polarizing and controversial pioneer of Christian music. With an often critical tone of the western Church, a concern for the environment and often being at odds with the Christian music industry, it's not hard to see why.

Snowblind is a live album visiting many of his more notable songs and is split into two parts. The first half is Norman on guitar and the second on piano. From the beginning, Norman jumps into the gritty "Why Don't You Look Into Jesus," a song first appearing on the album Only Visiting This Planet. With only having vocals and guitar (No backing band here), anyone would hope for a more clear recording. It's not by any means terrible, but a less than perfect sound does detract from the music as a whole. "I Hope I'll See You In Heaven" is a gentle song highlighting both Norman's guitar playing and vocals against a melancholy melody, while "Messiah" and "Six Sixty Six" are back-to-back songs dealing with the end times -- something many of the Jesus music pioneers sang about very often. It's somewhat difficult to compare the sound of the music to other artists, but at times it has similarity in style to John Lennon. "Playing Checkers" is a track of Norman talking/preaching on the fears of a nuclear holocaust and the first half of the concert is rounded out with "Moses." The audience is laughing hard during this comical retelling of the Exodus from Egypt.

The remaining half of the album finds Norman on piano for a series of more intimate songs. Anyone could likely guess by the title that "One Way" is a song about Jesus being the only way into heaven. "If The Bombs Fall" deals with hopes and dreams in this life perhaps not being fulfilled in the event of nuclear war. In my opinion, "Bombs" is the only golden nugget to be found on this piano-driven half, a beautiful song highlighting Norman's ridiculously high falsetto. The rest of the album becomes muddled. While Norman can sing and play guitar beautifully, strong block chords pounded down make up most of this piano set. "Strong Love, Strange Peace" is a prayer for the audience from Norman's perspective as a Christian singer. Finally, for the end of this sometimes dragging slower half of the concert comes "And We Sing The Tune" followed by the excessively long (Over 9 Minutes!) "The Tune" and "I Am A Servant."

So my takeaway is that Snowblind has a lot of humor and deals with thematic issues, which all work in its favor. But it also has a less than clean recording and I wouldn't recommend it to a first time listener of Norman's music. In my opinion, there are other albums that give the listener a better feel for his music and the sound of Jesus music as a whole. Is it worth a listen? I say yes. Will you fall in love? Probably not.

Review date: 1/21/17, written by Paul C Nave for Jesusfreakhideout.com