Whether intentionally like his 2022 album “The Path Home: Live at Evelyn Chapel (09/17/2022)” or not, you can picture C.W. Franz performing the tracks off his latest record “The First Eschaton” at a church in front of a live, attentive audience. Described by C.W. as a ‘sort of love letter to Greek Orthodox Christianity’, this album was recorded on Orthodox Holy Thursday and released on the following Friday. Its narrative is an all-too familiar one: the path of Jesus Christ through Holy Week, from his entrance into Jerusalem to his eventual crucifixion and resurrection.
With an eclectic mix of profound and personal themes already woven into his catalogue, it’s interesting to see C.W. choose a religious one for his new album. In keeping with my Christian-based tradition of watching a biblical film on Good Friday (a week before this album’s release), I watched, for the second time in my life, the critically revered but still understandably controversial 1988 drama “The Last Temptation of Christ”. And while I won’t get into full details on the film’s narrative and controversy, director Martin Scorsese delivered a provocative, empathic and surprisingly plausible examination of the HUMAN fears and concerns the Messiah must have felt leading up to his crucifixion. Seeing it again, I took note of the haunting, surreal and boldly contemporary musical score by legendary British musician Peter Gabriel, whose work on that film helped pave the way for the mainstream acceptance of world and new age music.
And while “The First Eschaton” is nowhere near as musically versatile than Peter’s “Passion” soundtrack for that film (I mean, he got BAABA MAAL to be on it, for God’s sake!), it achieves something similar: using its own unique voice to describe what is arguably THE central event in the Christian religion. And throughout the album’s five tracks, you can feel C.W. tapping into his thoughts and emotions surrounding the Passion of Jesus, and expressing them in the best way he knows how. In other words, it’s not a sermon, but a soundtrack to one of the most important weeks in human history.
Sticking with his suite-style approach to his song compositions, “The First Eschaton” opens with “The Lord’s Prayer/Sea of Palms/Ill Augury”. The first third of this track is the only vocal moment on the record as C.W. recites the Lord’s Prayer, stopping at the line “but deliver us from the evil one”. Going back to the church I mentioned earlier, the music that follows sounds grand and immersive, and really puts you in that audience, or better yet, congregation listening to C.W.’s instrumentation. Speaking of which, like “The Path Home”, C.W.’s the sole performer on this record, with a Casio SA-76 mini-keyboard, Tibetan singing bowl, a mantura for a brief moment of wind music and sleigh bells at the ready.
Admittedly, this is an album where its song titles, each of which references an event on Holy Week, are essential in knowing when each track begins or at least figuring out when the subsequent songs in the suite-styled tracks begin. Due to the improvisational approach to these songs and primary use of drone and ambient musical styles, it’s left to the listener to discern where these moments begin – or even end, especially if you’re the type who listens to albums from start to finish without looking at track titles at all.
But back to “The Lord’s Prayer/Sea of Palms/Ill Augury”. After the Lord’s Prayer, we get an establishing keyboard chord which acts as this reverberating foundation on which C.W. builds the mellow, tempered melody that functions as “Sea of Palms”. And while it mostly gives off a peaceful calm (meant to emphasize Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem on a donkey and the palm branches waved in celebration of said arrival), there is an underlying sense of dread that weaves its way throughout this section of the track. Near the end of “Sea of Palms”, the background chord is replaced with this throbbing, droning chord, followed by a brief, tense chord progression. The track closes with “Ill Augury” where the instrumentation gets even more uneasy, only to be alleviated near the end thanks to the song’s airy and spacey production.
We then get the epic, 25-minute suite “Trial of the Nazarene/Golgotha/The First Eschaton”, the first part of which flows ever so seamlessly after the final moments of “Ill Augury”. Given its importance in the album’s narrative and its overall length, it’s a genuinely smart decision to dedicate the second track to the Good Friday part of Holy Week. While the driving melodies of “Trial of the Nazarene” are fundamentally similar to “Ill Augury”, it serves as a significantly darker and haunting follow-up to what we heard earlier. Additionally, there’s a notable sense of uncertainty in this section as if the outcome of this trial is indeed unknown at this point. Around the 6:45 mark, C.W. proceeds to tap a certain key on his keyboard repeatedly, perhaps alluding to the nailing of Jesus’ hands that will inevitably happen. It’s also funny that the use of that key evokes the sound of a gavel being hit to restore order in an archetypal courtroom.
C.W. applies this key-tapping technique near the end of the 8-minute mark of the track, where I assume the “Golgotha” section begins. The unsettling nature of that tapping alone suggests that what’s being represented here is Jesus’ long, torturous journey to the site of his crucifixion. Around the 16-minute mark, the tense chord progression from Track 1 resurfaces (signifying his arrival at Golgotha) and intensifies a bit more before its abrupt stop. After a brief gap of silence, we get the track’s final section “The First Eschaton”. Easily the most haunting moment on the entire album, this song captures the traumatic minutes Jesus spent on the cross and the impact his death and subsequent resurrection will have on humanity. Given its ominous nature throughout, the droning synth lead which concludes this song might as well be the moment Jesus cries out to God before giving up his spirit.
‘The World Trembles and Cries Out’, an interlude of sorts, is the only track that incorporates the sleigh bells and mantura, the latter of which has this notably wailing, weeping sound to it. The exotic sound of that instrument alone reminds me a bit of Peter Gabriel’s Middle Eastern-inspired musical moments on his “Passion” soundtrack. As the title suggests, this is the moment where, after Jesus says “It is finished” and dies, an earthquake occurred, tombs were broken open, and many of God’s people who died prior to Jesus’ crucifixion were brought back to life.
And then we get the last two tracks on the album: “The Sun Rises (On the Second Day)” and “The Sun Rises (On the Third Day)”. The former opens with these relaxed, droning notes from C.W.’s Tibetan singing bowl. Once the keyboard is fired up after the first minute of the song, we get what is thematically the first half of the album’s denouement. Those who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion are going about their lives and those who were told of his resurrection are waiting for that glorious moment to occur. Compared to the first two tracks, the keyboard melodies here sound calmer and less foreboding. There’s an air of melancholy and drama to C.W.’s keyboard playing, as it slowly but surely builds towards the promised resurrection of Jesus.
Around the 5-minute mark, the establishing synth lead is cut off and replaced by this dramatic chord progression (perhaps meant to symbolize Jesus’ empty tomb at this point in the narrative) which ends the song and segues into the appropriately-titled final track “The Sun Rises (On the Third Day)”. Compared to the emotional weight of the previous tracks, this track is substantially lighter and hopeful in tone, exuding a sense of relief as, yes, Christ has indeed risen and conquered death.
As an artistic expression of Jesus’ fulfillment of his purpose during Holy Week, “The First Eschaton” delivers. You can tell this project was near and dear to C.W.’s heart and yet he invites the listener to take part in what is truly a captivating musical experience. Fans of C.W.’s work will not be disappointed by this album, and those who’re looking to remind themselves of the events of Holy Week will find a lot to admire and appreciate here. In short, “The First Eschaton” is an absolute must-listen!
OVERALL RATING: 8 out of 10
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