Set Apart - The Silverwind Album Nobody Talks About

21 June 2021, 12.39pm.

Today I'm going to show a little love to the bastard Silverwind album.

I'll be honest... I hated this album when I first heard it. Hated it. I had been a Silverwind fangirl for several years by that point, and fourteen-year-old me wanted nothing more than to be the next Betsy Hernandez. Her voice is still my favourite female voice ever, in any genre, bar none.

When I plunked Set Apart (1986) onto the turntable and heard thick alto harmonies coming through the speakers, I felt betrayed. It was like I'd been punched in the gut. It took me over five years to realise that actually, the hyped-up '80s tracks and the sweet, calming harmonies that balanced them were really quite good. Had the voice been Betsy Hernandez's, this would have instantly become my favourite album of all time, but the shock of the very different voices made this album a slow burner. And, from what I can gather online in all my music-nerd groups, I was not the only one who felt this way.

Certainly, the trio that replaced Hernandez, Banov, and Gramling were very talented singers who blended beautifully, but the change in sound was so sudden and drastic that it was hard to look past the change to the album itself, or even the strengths of the singers that replaced the original three. It's no surprise that despite the beauty of the songwriting, the harmonies, and the instrumentation, this was the last album to bear the Silverwind name -- the change was simply too great to overcome in one album, and in the music business, one album is all it takes to sink you as a recording act. The producers tried to soften the blow by having Betsy Hernandez sing guest vocals on two of the songs, but it was too little, too late.

And yet... this album is a banger. It was ahead of its time while keeping one foot firmly planted in the gentle Maranatha keyboard/string machine sound a CCM audience would be looking for. In fact, the production and arranging was so cutting edge for the time that if you were to play me this album for the first time with no background information and ask me what year it was from, I would guess 1989. The saxophone sounds, the woodwind-esque keyboards, the synth stings, the occasional squarewave bass, the very electric guitar -- all these were motifs that were not yet mainstream in 1986. The opening track (I'm Forever Yours) may have the biggest drums in CCM this side of Mylon LeFevre and Broken Heart's Crack The Sky. In fact, the drums are a huge part of the entire record -- even the mellow songs. Just listen to Heart Of Love and tell me you can't see that song in front of a live audience of thousands having the absolute time of their lives.

Lyrically, this is still very much a Silverwind album. Simple, honest lyrics of childlike wonder and heartfelt praise still abound here. Most of the songs were still written by the Hernandez and Hernandez husband/wife team -- in fact the clarity and quality of the lyrics here takes a marked leap. This album is full of striking lyrical gems, such as But once you've seen the sun, there isn't anyone / Who is able to persuade you it's not there... (I Believe In You), or  No manufactured fake or forgery / No counterfeit could make a fool of me / I've found a love so real / A power I can feel... (Heart Of Love -- this bit is just so fun to sing), or God's heart was broken to make me my own... (Crystal Heart) or They say you're wise as you grow older / But all I know is I've grown colder... (First Love).

As to the quality of the voices -- the harmonies are still catchy and dare I say addicting. They're just different, and once you get past that, they're truly enjoyable. Silverwind has often been called the 'Christian ABBA' due to the soaring harmonies, and that nickname is still relevant even with the personnel change. Even this is actually a step up from the previous album, By His Spirit. BHS relied heavily on Hernandez, with the other two members singing lead on only one song each (though to be fair, who wouldn't give in to the temptation to feature such an angelic voice so much?). In Set Apart, vocal duties are pretty much divided equally between the women, even within individual songs, and one hears some lovely male solos on Side B (First Love is a beautifully emotional performance). Older Silverwind relegated the harmonies largely to choruses, but Set Apart Silverwind used them everywhere, and it made their swan song truly shine. If you hold out through the initial style shock until the penultimate track (I Believe In You), you'll be rewarded with a strong and powerfully-sung glimpse of classic Silverwind.

It was really context that sunk this album. If it hadn't been released under the Silverwind name, with all of the sonic and vocal expectations that came with that name, I daresay this album would have blown up. This was the most rocking female-led album in mainstream CCM at the time (Leslie Phillips' magnum opus The Turning was not yet released, and Margaret Becker wouldn't make her debut for another year), and definitely the hardest-hitting worship record to date (Petra's Petra Praise... The Rock Cries Out was still three years away). Yet it remains the only album of Silverwind's catalogue that has never seen a CD release and consistently gets either hated on or not mentioned at all among fans of the group.

It's really a shame that this record didn't have a better chance at life. It's a really strong album in almost every respect, and I'm glad I stuck with it long enough to see that. I encourage you to do the same.

You can listen to it on YouTube here.

Music Day - A Song In The Night

I'm surprised I haven't featured this one.

Silverwind was, vocally, the 'Christian' equivalent of ABBA, and I loved both equally. There's not a lot of call for soprano voices in CCM, and from the day I first heard this album I was enraptured by Betsy Hernandez's pure, clear voice (come to think of it, those are also the same vocal qualities Rick Florian has). My short-lived desire to be a singer was born then, listening to my dad's vinyl copy of the album I'm about to feature.

For me, this was a slow burner of a song. It was pretty, of course, and I could appreciate the lyrics even then, but I liked Forgiven better (ironically the one song on the album that didn't heavily feature Hernandez's fairy-like soprano voice). It was around 2016 when this song sprang into my mind out of nowhere and I spent the next eight hours choreographing the entire thing start-to-finish from scratch. I had never even thought about choreographing it (there were too many Daniel Amos songs ahead of it in the queue), but suddenly I saw the entire thing in my head, fully formed, and it was all I could do to write it all down before it was gone. It was one of maybe two dances I've made that I would suspect were divinely inspired. There were seventeen dancers, angels flooding the stage. I'm not normally one for angels, but that was what the piece demanded so that was what I wrote. This is probably one of the ones I would most like to see on stage before I die.

The song itself is written as a lullaby -- a rather more lush and fleshed-out lullaby (the song clocks in at nearly four a and half minutes long). It includes not only Silverwind's signature harmonies, but also a child choir. If you can tune out the oom-pah-pah-like bass line (I promise, it is literally the only kitschy part of the song), you will find a beautiful bed of piano work (I wish I knew who played piano on this so I can buy everything they ever played on), accentuated by some light synth touches.

There are several highlight moments here. The first is the second chorus. The first chorus features only the children singing the melody in unison on la la la, accompanied only by a gentle rhythm section. The first and second verses are lovely and touching but not overly arresting -- painting a picture of a frightened child singing a simple song to beat back the terrors of the night -- but after the second verse there's a short but hard stop and Betsy's voice, nearly a cappella, puts words to the melody that the children sang earlier.

Take me soon, O morning star

To the heavens where you are

Sailing on a silver wind

Take me where my dreams begin...

In recent years, I've begun to imagine singing this to any future children I might have. It's the only time I have ever really pictured having a child of my (our) own. But the angel theme that I suddenly associated with the song in 2016 is a hard one to break. It does make sense -- in 2016, I was still very much grieving the losses (read: deaths) that happened in 2015, including the death of my cousin at nine years old. And in the past year or two especially, I have developed a very intense longing for 'home' -- the heavens, beyond the stars, beyond the wall of sleep. It's much deeper than the suicidal urges I've fought off and on through the years. This is a pervasive longing -- not to die, necessarily, but to go to the place where things are Good. The words take me, morning star / To the heavens where you are (as it is sung later in the song) sometimes fill me with so much longing to go there that it brings me to tears. This song is a lullaby, but a very emotionally intense one, one with the aura of death.

The second major highlight moment is where is seems the song comes to an end. At this point, it's been a lovely but mellow lullaby. It slows to an ending with a repeated line and a cadence... then the piano surges into the space and a triumphant trumpet kicks off a repeat of the chorus...

The third highlight is after this repeat. The chorus is repeated again, but with the children singing a counterpoint line -- which is something you literally NEVER, EVER hear in CCM (yes, DA did it in Horrendous Disc, the song, a couple years earlier, but by then they were in the process of being relegated to the 'probably heresy' section in Christian music stores). It is absolutely otherworldly.

Title: A Song In The Night

Artist: Silverwind

Album: A Song In The Night

Year: 1982

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Shadows fade and then disappear

When voices rise up sweet and clear...

Music Day Part I - Forgiven

It really doesn't feel like Good Friday to me today. Usually on Good Friday there is a turkey dinner and family (whether mine or someone else's generous one). But I spent today researching tap shoes (mine are officially shot) alone in my flat.

It's getting harder to find suitable songs for Easter weekend every year. Songs on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus were fairly common in the 1970s and 1980s, but since then even the mention of Jesus in Christian music is hard to come by (unless you're a worship band, but even then they mostly talk about how He makes them feel, not anything He's actually done). As a result, I'm featuring the songs that do exist, but there aren't really any new ones coming out. The year will come when I have to either stop the two-for-one Easter weekend special or start re-using songs.

Fortunately for all of us, this is not that year.

Title: Forgiven
Artist: Silverwind
Album: A Song In The Night
Year: 1982
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

How have I not featured this song before? This album was my jam back in 2003-2006. Yeah, okay, the production is dated, but the vocal blend is lovely and there's a really sweet simplicity in all of Silverwind's songs -- especially the songs on this album. Betsy Hernandez has perhaps the prettiest unrecognised voice in CCM history and was actually my inspiration to even consider learning to sing myself. It just floats. It's like a fairy's voice. Unfortunately this is the one song on the album that doesn't feature her voice prominently, but you still hear her airy soprano in the harmonies in the chorus and in the backing vocals. (Check out the title track from this album and some of the Music Day archives -- here and here -- if you want to hear more of her.)

This song is based on a true story, by the way -- check out Luke 23:32-43.