It's an`Eleventh Hour' revival for Jars of Clay

The members of Jars of Clay have left their artistic fingerprints all over each aspect of their latest album, "The Eleventh Hour."

The set marks a return to the creative well that fueled the band's successful 1995 eponymous debut.

That album spawned the group's signature hit, "Flood," and propelled it to critical and commercial success in both the Christian and mainstream music fields.

The two following albums 1997's "Much Afraid" and 1999's "If I Left the Zoo" were critically praised but not as commercially successful.

Vocalist Dan Haseltine says the band is back on track with "The Eleventh Hour": "There's more clarity of thought. There's a passion and honesty that hasn't been heard since the first record."

Jars of Clay hits the mark with a thoughtful collection of songs that cover a broad range of topics from co-dependency to the brevity of life, including the first single, "Fly."

"It's a true story," Haseltine says of the song. "A friend of ours was good friends with a couple, and the wife had cancer. They spent the entire six months of their marriage in the hospital. He stayed by her bedside constantly, and then she died. This song deals with the questions she was asking before she died."

In addition to the new tunes on "The Eleventh Hour," Jars of Clay contributed the song "The Widowing Field" to the recent Mel Gibson film "We Were Soldiers."

The band's music has been featured in several other films including "Hard Rain," "Jack Frost," "The Long Kiss Goodnight," "The Chamber" and "The Prince of Egypt."

This sidebar appeared with the story:

Jars of Clay, with Jennifer Knapp and Shaun Groves

When, where: Sunday, 6 p.m., Spokane Opera House

Tickets: $26.50 and $21.50, through G&B (325-SEAT, 800-325-SEAT or www.ticketswest.com)

Copyright 2002 Cowles Publishing Company
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