http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A677908

HOME: SEPTEMBER 26, 2008: MUSIC
Texas Platters

BY MELANIE HAUPT

Infinite Partials
End of Begin

Infinite Partials singer-songwriter Grant Hudson defines his act's sound as "folk-fusion." Apart from the use of djembe, it's unclear where the "fusion" comes from but not the folk. Fitting, then, that End of Begin was recorded in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, as there's an evangelical-cum-coffee shop earnestness in Hudson's densely packed lyrics, which obliquely reference Protestant come-to-Jesus rhetoric (particularly "Texas Song") thinly veiled enough to escape a secular audience. Musically, not a wrong note sounds. Arrangements are gorgeous, the violins, marimba, and djembe blending beautifully to produce a richly layered sound of which the Austin sextet should be proud and which helps temper the feel that Hudson and company would probably be right at home providing the music on any given Sunday morning at your local God shack.

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Well, for those of you who have had a chance to listen to the lyrics enough to have an idea of what I try to communicate in my songs, I'll let you make your own judgements of this review.

For the rest of you, I hope this review won't keep you from giving our songs a listen. You'll find that, for better or worse, there's a lot more there than 'come-to-Jesus' rhetoric.

I guess I also hope that this review won't draw people in either. Unless they're just curious. I don't know.

From my perspective, it seemed like Ms. Haupt didn't really review the record, she reviewed the institution that graciously provided us recording space. Infinite Partials feels no shame in being associated with the First Baptist Church of Austin, but we are open to all people, all ideas, and all human institutions. We do not prejudge, and we do not judge (although I must say I've slipped in the past eight years and made some pretty harsh judgements of President W. and his war-mongering cronies. So I am a hippocrate, like the rest of us). We hope that our music and lyrics communicate our openness and curiosity. So, if you are part of any local 'god-shack' whose members reject people because of their ideas, convictions, moral code, or beliefs, than you probably won't dig our music too much.
But who am I to judge. Give it a listen. Let me know what you think.

And thanks, Melanie. You baptized me by fire with that review. And I came out a stronger person. Bless you.

-grant