"Equilibrium" by Shane Jackman contains 10 songs written by Mr. Jackman himself. His music is not like most contemporary LDS artists such as Kenneth Cope or Michael McLean. This is not an album intended for Sunday listening. His musical style is similar to that of modern folk music, with a tinge of country, and is meant to be listened to the rest of the week.

With the songs on this album, Mr. Jackman is attempting to be a storyteller. Each of the songs has a short story to tell within the lyrics of the song. "What I Did On My Summer Vacation (Love You Like The Rain)" is a story of love. "Set Fire to the City" is a song reflection on the pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley and their descendants. While "Corn Flakes" for supper is a song of love lost. Mr. Jackman seems to be very talented in this area in that the stories are fairly easy to understand and make sense when you hear them.

Most of the music itself tends to be rather slow and melancholy. There are three exceptions to this. Two of the songs, "Love You Like the Rain" and "Didn't I" are more upbeat songs while "Cornflakes for Supper" has a more bluesy feel to it. Mr. Jackman has quite a talent with the instruments he plays. I was especially impressed with his abilities on the harmonica as heard on "Cornflakes for Supper." However, while the music can be enjoyable, too many of the songs have melodies that are very similar.

Mr. Jackman is trying to fill a niche in LDS music that needs to be filled. This is music for daily listening that has no offensive language or inappropriate themes. You can put this album in your CD player or tape deck without worrying about what you might hear. The music, while still too similar, is enjoyable. This left me slightly perplexed as to why I just did not enjoy this album.

The problem with this album is that there is not enough variety to the music. Only two of the songs have any sort of upbeat feeling. Many albums have songs that are melancholy. However, they generally try to balance these songs by providing plenty of happy or upbeat songs because most people want to feel good after listening to an album. I walked away from this album very down, because only two of the songs on this album have an upbeat feel to them. The album is very unbalanced making the melancholy feel much to heavy.

I still say Shane Jackman can fill a very important niche in LDS music. Most of the songs on this album are quite good. However, I did not enjoy the album as a whole. Shane Jackman is talented but I recommend seeing if his two previous albums are more balanced musically. For that reason, I am only giving this album 2.5 stars.

Shane Jackman Website