In Awe of His Amazing Love

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Music
Genre:	Rock
Artist:	Thoughts And Notions

Album Review: Thoughts And Notions: In Awe of His Amazing Love

Matt Slocum, Leigh Nash, Dan Haseltine. What is their parallelism to Jasper Lloyd Tan, Wilbert Tan, Thrina Dimaano, and Adonis Berongoy? It is funny that these past few months, I have come to observe how the story of Thoughts And Notions, a band from the Philippines, would closely resembled with that of Sixpence none the richer and Jars of Clay (apart from their long sounding, not to mention wordy band names). The founding members Jasper and Wilbert never denied that they have been greatly inspired and influenced by both of the aforementioned bands. But it came as a very surprising revelation when I found out how their story closely resembles both bands, especially Sixpence. As everyone knows by now, Sixpence started as a simple project by songwriter/guitarist Matt Slocum who brought along Leigh Nash as his vocalist. Thoughts And Notions started as a simple project by Lyricist Jasper Lloyd Tan and guitarist Wilbert Tan who brought along Thrina Dimaano as their vocalist. In the same way that Leigh Nash totally owned and breathed life into Slocum’s songs, Thrina also totally owned and breathed life into Jasper’s and Wilbert’s songs. While Leigh’s vocal quality has this ethereal and angelic voice, Thrina has a mishmash of a childlike and spunky sound. Despite both of the band’s debut album were little distributed, they managed to enjoy critical acclaims from their peers and newfound listeners to their music. Sixpence would then go on to enthrall and capture the world with their songs of hope, faith, and an untiring devotion to their mission. While Thoughts And Notions, despite being new, is slowly gaining ground for them self. Sixpence’s debut album also once spent for a year in the shelves before their single “Kiss Me” skyrocketed them in the world’s music map. Thoughts And Notions is waiting for the same break. Both of the bands share the same mission and purpose why their band came to be. Jasper was even vocal in sharing that he always gets goose bumps every time he gets to read Sixpence’s story in their Best of album. Their musical styles are closely the same. The only difference is that Thoughts And Notions’ songs sounds like a mix of Sixpence and Jars of Clay. So this is where their parallelism with Jars comes in.

Jars of Clay is also one of both Jasper’s and Wilbert’s influences. But because none of them actually believed they had a good voice, they decided to just let Thrina sing all of their songs. After releasing their album as an indie effort through their church, friends, and workmates. The band decided to send a demo copy to Praise Music, considered as the Philippines largest Christian music store in the country. The band managed to snag a distribution deal with Praise Music, which gave them an opportunity to share their music to a larger audience. With that in place, Jasper and Thrina decided to formally form their band after Wilbert got busy with his other band. This is where Adonis and the rest of his band mates namely, Tim Marquez, Alvin Carreon, and Ericson Gloria would come in. They automatically became a perfect fit for Thoughts And Notions after they auditioned for the band. Jasper was so impressed with Adonis' vocal likeness to Dan Haseltines voice after hearing him sing a cover of Jars of Clay’s I Need You. The parallelism does not end here. While their debut album Thoughts And Notions: In awe of his amazing love only featured Thrina doing the vocal chores, their future second album will finally feature both Thrina and Adonis doing the vocal chores, As seen in their live gigs. A mix of Sixpence and Jars as what a lot has noticed. Now of all the songs that are contained in their debut album, there are two songs that are heavily inspired by Jars of Clay. Jars of Clay’s Love Song for a Savior inspired Jasper to write Savior, and My Love Song. (If you try to read the titles of these songs, you could notice a resemblance of some sort.) Jasper reveals that Savior was not really inspired by Love song for a Savior, but he readily admits that My Love Song was inspired by the aforementioned Jars‘ song’s message. While Love song for a Savior expresses the want to fall in love with the savior, My Love Song already talks about falling in love with the Savior. By the way both doesn’t sound alike. Love Song for a savior has this acoustic feel, while My Love Song has this bouncy and catchy sound. Both of these tracks are way different, it’s only the message that’s kind of the same.

The rest of Thoughts And Notions songs are a mix of brilliant tracks that are unique in it’s own way. Not sounding one bit the same with any of Sixpence’s nor Jars’ music, but the traces of brilliance is there. From infectious Pop-Rock melodies (My Love Song, Earthbound Angel, A Love So Real, Strength I Need, Defender), to stripped down acoustic feel (Healer, My Journey Ends), or even to anthemic alternative rock sounding vibes (Savior, Repentance, Brand New Day). It can evidently be assessed that Thoughts And Notions’ music is one big explosion waiting to happen. With that, all of the parallelisms are there. Good sounding positive music, Faith driven messages, and a mission faithful to its very core. One should catch Thoughts And Notions before the rest of the world catches on them first. I recommend you to buy a copy now and savor their music.

Thoughts And Notions: In Awe of his amazing Love is now available at all House of Praise outlets and selected record bars nationwide.