Rich Mullins: Pictures In The Sky (1987)

Tracks:

1. When You Love
2. It Don't Do
3. Verge of a Miracle
4. Pictures in the Sky
5. Be With You
6. Screen Door
7. What Trouble Are Giants
8. Steal At Any Price
9. Could Be a Celebration
10. Love that Knows No Bounds 

With his second album, Rich Mullins moves forward in his development as a songwriter and performer, continuing in his themes of Christian love, spiritual fulfillment, and confessional honesty.  The ten songs on the record don't rank with the best of his later work in terms of power or resonance, but he's starting to understand his strengths and maximize the potential flashed on Rich Mullins. 

Probably the most obvious improvement is in Reed Arvin's production.  He and Mullins have left behind the image of Rich the Rocker and focused more on his Adult Contemporary stylings, which does result in a lot of electric pianos and chiming synths, and at times the album does drift into the middle of the path, as in mid-tempo ballads like "Verge of a Miracle," Rich's first bona fide hit.  The song has the usual pleasant melody and vocal high points, but it's not even the most interesting thing on this album, let alone his career. 

In place of stadium rock we now have Rich the white soul singer, getting funky and uptight.  He's certainly got the chops to pull it off; he's got enough grit in his throat to at least make it sound like he really is having some church up in here.  The problem ends up being the same as the rock songs from the first album: the more funky grooves, back up singers, and noise you put around him, the less impact his music has.  It's most obvious on "It Don't Do," which has a great message about preaching mercy and truth in one's words, and Rich gets appropriately sanctified.  But while he does do, the song don't do, and then it's done.  (Maybe he should've covered "Ba Ba Ba Ba?") Anyway, the link above is a live acoustic version that's a vast improvement over the urban gospel-ish version on the record.

He does a better job of soul-shouting on the other hit from the album, "Screen Door."  It's an a capella doo-woop jam that's barely over two minutes long, but it's full of funny metaphors illustrating the second chapter of the book of James, and lots of "dip-dip-dips" and "We-oo-we-oo-wees."  Of course, the song is most famous for the "cups" routine that Rich would do on stage with the band or whoever happened to be around at that moment.  (See the above link for the song to see Rich and friends do the cups thing live)

Of the rest of the songs, Rich does put some powerful messages in some very nice packages.  The title track breezes through multiple modulations and key changes with a pretty good chorus melody; "Steal At Any Price" has a strong message about Jesus' love for the broken souls of society; and "Be With You" is the lone solo piano song, but it lacks the strong chorus and imagery of "Elijah" and "These Days."  He also repeats Rich Mullins by closing out the album with a slow ominous number with a heavy message in "Love That Knows No Bounds." 

In the context of his career canon, Pictures in the Sky is what it is: an enjoyable if somewhat uneventful sophomore effort that shows some signs of maturity and development by its artist and producers, but lacks a great standout moment to move it to a more timeless status.  That's not to say it doesn't have fun and moving moments, it's just that time would show that Rich's craft was still growing into his message, and it would take a few more stops on the road before he would hit full stride.