I got the new Over the Rhine record, OHIO, last week. There's nothing more delicious than Karin Bergquist's voice and nothing more filling than Linford Detweiler's words and melodies. Put those things together and you've got one hell of a good meal. Linford said something in his liner notes that I thought you all might appreciate. Heck, I'm not a musician and I appreciate it:

We grew up with the musical mingling common to many of us who were raised in "the church." There were the old hymns that seeped into our souls via our mothers' milk, and then there was the allure of the music we were finding on our radio dials and on our friends' records. In small town America, many of us do grow up in a surreal musical world where Elvis is King, Jesus is Lord.

The records we ended up making document in part our attempts to unravel the tangle of religion we inherited. It's unsettling when someone named Jesus keeps turning up in unexpected places on a double album, but we're by no means the first songwriters to be Christ-haunted.

I'm just starting to taste what OHIO has to offer - call it the first course. I'm sure you'll come to hear more from me about it.