"When the dust settles and the smoke clears, the powers that be have no clue what to do with Inspirational/Christian music. Part of this is willful ignorance: they don't want to know about it, and they don't want you to know about it, either. Here is the logic: they don't play it and if you buy it they ignore it and don't report it so wow, they were right, weren't they? The New York Times Book Review played this same game for years on their best seller list until the LEFT BEHIND series became such a phenomenal success that they finally had to note the presence of the elephant in the living room that they had been ignoring. The same thing, happened, music-wise, with Creed. Rickie Lee Jones' new disc reflects her new-found conversion, and Bono? The drunken little Orangeman has been slipping subliminal messages of faith into U2's music for years. But there is a lot of contemporary inspirational music out there that you haven't heard, and a lot of it is very, very good.

You can file Chase Thompson in that category. Thompson has a fine tenor that is perfectly suited for his self-composed material on SHOOT YOU DOWN. Just a couple of years out of high school, there is nonetheless a quiet maturity and gravitas that informs his work, as befits its subject matter. The arrangements are simple enough --- Thompson on vocals and piano, augmented by synthesizer, guitars and bass --- and reflect a confidence in Thompson's composing abilities that is ultimately demonstrated. He makes excellent use of dynamics on tunes such as "Hollow/We Are Lifted" and "Lifeless" but is not afraid of quiet, reflective tunes such as the title track. Thompson does not proselytize --- and quite honestly, that should not be of concern, given the topics explored within the balance of popular culture --- and one could easily confuse it with the best of adult contemporary music that is out there right now.

SHOOT YOU DOWN goes down easy and smooth, an addiction that is actually good for you. Ballads that will wake you up. And there's nothing wrong with that at all."



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Chase Thompson – Shoot You Down Reviewed 04 June 2007

The title track starts off this EP, and it provides a somber bit of piano to open up things. What style Chase Thompson plays is not immediately known from the piano line, but what ultimately results is a style that makes heavy use of the piano line. The style is a slow style in the vein of Gary Jules, and the vocals provide a narrative while riding on top of this piano line. The track gradually adds other bits and pieces, making "Shoot You Down" into a more soulful version of Frey-type rock. The melodies are surprisingly not only provided from the piano lines, but are created from the vocals.

The track may be slightly longer than most normal tracks, but there seems to be enough in the way of different instrumental movements to keep things fresh. All I know is by the time that "Shoot You Down" ends, I want to keep listening. For an artist that is new to me, that is perhaps the strongest entrance to a disc I can find. "Blue Lillies" is another track along the same vein, slower, more emotional, and pretty much is limited to the vocalist and a paucity of instruments. Regardless of how Spartan these tracks may be, Chase Thompson creates beauty in simplisticity. The tracks could use a little bit more dramatic contrast and bombast, but Thompson does well in creating brilliance with these small tracks. There are no direct links that I could draw to other artists, as when I sat down to listen to "Shoot You Down", I heard Chase Thompson and only Chase Thompson.

This EP was not Thompson trying to ape specific styles of music to make it big, but rather to provide emotionally full and interesting tracks of a style that is familiar but is ultimately different from anything else that is currently on the market. It may be a little bit of trouble to extend this style to ten or eleven tracks in a LP format, but I believe that more things are up Thompson's sleeve, and that we will hear more and more from this artist until ey settles into a level of fame of the same caliber as Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds. You may not even like this style of music, but I believe that you, given the chance, will be able to find something beautiful and wondrous about the music that Thompson comes out with here on "Shoot You Down".

-Neufutur