Brandon Heath expands craft with “Leaving Eden”

Mul­ti­ple Dove Award win­ner and Gram­my nom­i­nee Bran­don Heath releas­es Leav­ing Eden this week. The CD has already pro­duced a No. 1 hit ‑Your Love. Heath will be in Den­ver on Feb. 3 with Toby­Mac’s Win­ter Won­der Slam tour. Pho­to cour­tesy of Prov­i­dent Label Group.

Bran­don Heath won the last two Dove Awards for Male Vocal­ist of the Year with “Give Me Your Eyes,” and “I’m Not Who I Was,” but those tunes pale in com­par­i­son with what he offers on “Leav­ing Eden.”

The CD show­cas­es his vocals more than his first two offer­ings, with Heath hold­ing notes and expand­ing his range from the first song “Leav­ing Eden” to the last “As Long As I’m Here.” And his abil­i­ty to inter­twine dai­ly life into com­pelling lyrics is evi­dent in “It’s No Good to Be Alone” and “Might Just Save Your Life.”

And lis­ten­ers are on to him.

The first release “Your Love,” hit No. 1 on the Bill­board Nation­al Chris­t­ian Audi­ence chart last week. Heath once again teamed with Jason Ingram on writ­ing the song — the two col­lab­o­rat­ed on 2009 Dove Award Song of the Year “Give Me Your Eyes.” And that is not the best song on the CD — my fave is “The Light In Me,” which hits you in the heart and encour­ages lis­ten­ers to strive to be a light in this world. Heath’s vocals real­ly shine, espe­cial­ly on the cho­rus. The song was the last writ­ten for the CD, with pro­duc­er Dan Muck­ala ham­mer­ing out the music and Heath craft­ing the lyrics. The song reveals Heath’s abil­i­ty to meld Bible vers­es into today’s music — while “chan­nel­ing Bon Jovi.” Yes, those are his words.

“I’m just a house on a hill, But you make me brighter, Than all the stars in the sky. … ‘Cause in your per­fec­tion, I’m just a reflec­tion … I’ll catch like a fire, and I’ll hold you high­er. ‘Cause you put the light in me. The spark. The shot to the heart.”

Anoth­er fave is the title track “Leav­ing Eden” that he wrote with Lee Thomas Miller. The song takes the lis­ten­er on a jour­ney through the head­lines of today — Peo­ple los­ing their homes to hur­ri­canes, Old lady liv­ing next door for­got her own name — a route that takes us far­ther away from the land of Eden.

Heath’s vocals are only get­ting stronger with each new CD, and this one should earn the Nashville even more hard­ware for his tro­phy case as evi­dence by the suc­cess of the first sin­gle.