Search - Mark Heard :: Mosaics

Under-Appreciated and Overlooked!

Mark J. Aronstein | Annandale, VA United States | 07/04/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The album "Mosaics" has definitely been under-appreciated and overlooked for too long, even by Mark Heard standards. What a blessing that it's finally been re-released. "A music fan" from Pittsburgh is right -- this is where Mark starts to hit his stride on the way to the brilliant trio of albums released in 1990-92 before his untimely death. This is a bridge between his earlier acoustic days and the frenetic roots rock of the later albums "Dry Bones Dance" and "Satellite Sky."Don't overlook this release... there's a bucket-load of great writing and catchy music here which is still relevant today. (Check out the cover of the T-Bone Burnette classic "Power of Love"!)Catch this album before it, too, disappears from our sight and goes home to the Father!"

One of the 10 best Christian albums ever

Tim Howard | Fremont, NE United States | 12/17/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This one is a masterpiece. Alongside "Dry Bones Dance" and "Second Hand" and "Tribal Opera" (as Ideola) Mark's work is above and beyond virtually everyone in the Christian market. From our perspective, it's an absolute shame that he's gone. Songs like "I Want You" and "With Broken Wings" and "I Know It Will Not Be Like This Forever" still stand the test of time. Very few Christian writers pen such honest, cut-to-the heart lyrics without being preachy. My only hope is that the new CD's contain all the original interviews and writings that the LP's had. Don't pass on the opportunity to buy this one!!"

The best L'Abri fallout.

Heidi Lockridge | Frederick, MD | 08/02/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I grew up in the woods of Virginia surrounded by white redneck devotees of Lynnard Skynnard. Once I had a copy of Mark Heard's Ashes & Light pumping and picked up one of my classmates who needed a ride. He wanted to know when this Lynnard Skynnard album had been released! Mosaic is the only other Mark Heard album which on a few songs shares that good old southern-fried-rock sound. I don't like what passes for music today -- emotionally it's rebellious without a cause, hiding in darkness, and when it's not sexually explicit it's politically correct. Yuck. In the past, I've been positively affected by many bands and styles of music. Bob Dylan, Kansas, The Alarm, Bruce Cockburn, Brooks Williams, Vigilantes of Love, Skatman Meredith, Daniel Band, Darryl Mansfield, Dianne Tong, Emmylou Harris, Paul Overstreet, Julie Miller, Jennifer Knapp and Larry Norman just to rattle off a few. But there's never been another like Mark Heard. His combination of soul-searching lyrics and accoustic-to-rockabilly pop sensibilities set him very nearly alone as the premeir model of integrity and skill amongst a couple of generations of English-language songwriters. The redeeming qualities of his work are such that it will truly be a tragedy if our generation fails to pass him along as part of the ongoing cannon of great Western thought and expression. What other pop musician of our era can compare with Bach's masses for lyrical surgical precision and laser reach? A man who was neither too afraid of his peers nor of himself to be honest about his struggles and failures, hopes and dashed dreams. The feeling I always get to this day when I listen to Mosaic and others of his releases is that he not only knows me, personally, but also has extremely keen insight into me. I'm over 40 now, the very fact of which is partially a tribute to Mark's theraputic craft. He's like reading Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy, or Shakespeare's later political/philosophical plays. Raw honesty, deeply imbibed. Marcus Aurelius once said that life was a journey of learning to set aside former, simpler pleasures for the more difficult and deeper pleasures. Mark Heard is an important stop on that road. Get there."