(Photo : Audrey Assad)

The diagnosis is out:  our diminished appetite for God is because we have spent too much time nibbling at the table of the world.  We have feasted so indulgently from God's gifts that we have no more room for the Giver.  We have stuff ourselves with so much of the small stuff that we have no room for the grand and the glorious.  This is why the panache to such idolatrous indigestion is fasting.  Sometimes God has to remove from us some of his gifts so that we may hunger for the Giver.  This is the spiritual theme behind Audrey Assad's "Fortunate Fall."  The titular "Fortunate Fall" is the English translation of the Latin phrase "felix culpa."  "Felix Culpa" is a theological concept that was birthed through the teachings of St. Augustine. It simply affirms that sometimes God allows us to suffer so that He can bring something good and beauty out of our predicament.  Such a teaching has been worked into the liturgy of the Catholic Church.  The phrase "felix culpa" is part of the lyric of the Exsulter sung normally at the Easter Vigil.  Born in a Plymouth Brethren household and now a Roman Catholic, Assad has taken her heritage and interwoven them seamlessly on her brand new album "Fortunate Fall."

Assad first came into the music scene in 2008 when she self-raised $7,000 to make her EP "Firefly."  After the success of her EP, she was signed to Sparrow Records.  Her Sparrow debut "The House You're Building"  become the amazon.com "Best Album of 2010" in the Christian Music category, as well as being the best selling new artist in the Christian Music category of 2010 according to Soundscan.  Success equally followed with her sophomore album "Heart" which peaked at number three on Billboard Christian album chart.  A year later, she has left Sparrow Records. Thanks to the Kickstarter program, within a splinter, she has had received enough financial support from friends and fans to release "Fortunate Fall."  Unlike her previous Sparrow efforts, Assad has decided to keep "Fortunate Fall" lean and trim.  Gone is high profile producer Marshall Altman (Brooke Faser & Amy Grant).  And in his place is Assad overseeing all the production chores. Gone also are the list of co-writers.  Rather, all the songs here are single handedly scribed by Assad with the except of "Lead Me On" being penned by Assad and her Catholic mentor and worship leader Matt Maher and "I Shall Not Want" being co-written with Bryan Brown.

However, what is still at the centre stage is Assad imitable style where her songs strike the balance between erudite theological acumen and the easy accessibility to the average plebian.  As a talented singer-songwriter she has a fluidity of moving into our hearts in soft and gentle measures with her piano based ballads.  From the tingling chimes of the piano keys of "God is Good," you can feel the warm reassurance of God's goodness by the stark emotional quality of Assad's voice.  And by the time an ensemble of voices is brought in midway through the song you can feel the support of a church of people affirming with you God's goodness in the midst of our pain.  Or take Assad's co-write with Matt Maher "Lead Kindly Light" as another example ----- you can't help but feel like a child again in the simplicity of our Father's leading when we don't know our next step.  Using her Brooke Fraser-like breathy falsetto to great effect "You Speak" is pregnant with that raw and desperate longings to hear from God that are in our hearts but we dare not articulate.

Assad is more than your average coffeehouse piano- playing singer; her songs are weighty.  Her songs harkens back to the hymnic tradition where hymn writers would use their paeans as teaching moments.  On "Help My Unbelief" listen to how Assad deftly teaches the doctrine of incarnation in such mesmerizing profundity: "The fullness of the Godhead knit with our humanity/Flesh and bones sewn in the heart of God inseparably/I know, I know, and I believe You are the Lord."  Or take "I Shall Not Want" as another example: "From the love of my own comfort/From the fear of having nothing/From a life of worldly passions/Deliver me O God."  Not since Jesus has the discipleship been spelt out more eloquently.  If you are looking for theological depth in worship couched in gorgeously textured piano-based ballads, look no farther than Audrey Assad's "Fortunate Fall."   Falling has never been that fortunate as when God stretches out his hand of grace in our pain.