(Photo : Jamie O'Hara "Dream Hymns")

Anyone who has lived long enough will either be bereaved or be the cause of bereavement.  We need not be coy when it comes to our sufferings:  all of us at one or more points in life have been kicked in the teeth by suffering.   We have waited in the hospital's waiting room ready for a miracle but only to be led to the mortuary.  We have prayed fervently for a job only to find an unexplained email waiting in our inbox that we have been passed over.  We have trusted a dear friend only to find out that she has spread a pool of damaging rumors behind our backs.  Suffering is part of the result of humanity's fall.  The question is not whether or not we will suffer, but it's how we are to handle suffering.  We can either take the nails in our own hands and drive them the temple of those who caused it or we can put them at the Cross of our nail pierced Savior.  We can be brutal to those who have ill-treated us or we can be brutal in our anguish before God.   Jamie O'Hara's "Dream Hymns" is coetaneously a very dark as well as a very bright album.  Most of these newly O'Hara penned songs deal with suffering in one form or another.  And O'Hara isn't demure in giving vocabulary to some of the darkest points of life.  But the album also beams with a hopeful effervescence:  it's amazing how often the redemptive work of the Cross has been expounded in the same breath as suffering is detailed.   

If the name Jamie O'Hara sounds familiar, the "O'" in his name is a giveaway.  O'Hara is one half of the country duo the O'Kanes.  Long before Books and Dunn, Montgomery Gentry and Florida Georgia Line, Kieran Kane and Jamie O'Hara have been placing hits on the country chart such as "Oh Darling," "Can't Stop My Heart from Loving You," "Daddies Need to Grow Up Too" & "One True Love."  Even after the O'Kanes had called it a day, Jamie O'Hara released two solo gems "Rise Above It" and "Beautiful Obsession."  Other than their hit records, O'Hara has also been one of Nashville's most prolific writers.  And his repertoire is stellar, here's a sample: "Man to Man" by Gary Allan, "Grandpa Tell Me About the Good Ol' Days" by the Judds and "Love You Goodbye" by Tim McGraw.  However, it has been 12 years since we have last heard of a solo record by O'Hara.  Now this ace singer-songwriter is back with his debut Gospel album "Dream Hymns."

Sonically, "Dream Hymns" takes off where Jamie O'Hara has left off a dozen of years ago.  Still flourishing with stunning affection is O'Hara's minimalistic folky approach of the simplicity of just guitars (electric and acoustic) and drums.  And each of these 11 songs flow one into another unfolding the album's meta-narrative starting with "Hope in the Deepest" where all hope seems to have drowned to the ocean's deepest deep working its way up to the penultimate track "Something Ancient" where the voice of God is getting more and more audible.  While the album closes on a high note with "My Beloved."   A love song with undertones much more glorious than any human relationship can ever exude.  "My Beloved," borrowing language from Song of Songs and the Eden narrative, shows us despite our sufferings, God still intimately loves us.   Yet, another apogee of this record is O'Hara's mastery over language.  His adept use of rhymes, phrasing, images and turn of words not only focus on the meaning, but also the feel of the words to great effect.  "The Sacred You" is a prime example.  With words being used like the lenses of a high tech camera we get a zoomed in view of Jesus Christ panting his last breath on the Cross with the Palestine setting sun as the backdrop.  It's so surreal that you can't help but feel the immediacy of Christ's death all over again.

Just like Matt Maher and Audrey Assad, O'Hara is also from the Roman Catholic tradition. Thus, you will find some references to Mary like in "Orphan Child."  A story song about a lonely orphan girl walking into a stained-glass Cathedral weeping, "Orphan Girl" describes how the girl was encouraged by two Marys.  Regardless of whether one agrees or not with some of the non-Protestant views of some of the songs, "Dream Hymns" is a thoughtful and deeply spiritual record.  Like the laments in the Bible, O'Hara has chosen not to carry the burden of injustice and sufferings on his own shoulders.  Rather, with a blunt honesty, O'Hara through these songs has placed them rightfully at the foot of the Cross.