401. Walk on Water – Walk on Water
WALK ON WATER (1990)
Walk on Water
I have always wanted to meet the one other person that bought this album.
Walk on Water was the first release on Frontline Record’s “Alarma” imprint, a label created to distribute imported album but was later used for more straight alternative releases. They actually were not Christians when the album began production, but as the recording process continued each band member became Christians and the lyrical content changed drastically for the Swedish based band.
Borrowing liberally from the sounds of Duran Duran, After the Fire and Kaja, this keyboard driven band was right at the heart of the Euro techno/new wave sound for the time. On the more acoustic rock driven tunes the listener may catch a glimpse of Crowded House and World Party. The lyrics are actually much better than most of the simplistic Christian music that came from Sweden like Jerusalem and Edin Adahl.
There is a stunning, atmospheric mid-tempo tune called “What’s the Noise” that continues to stand out every time I listen to the album. As I understand it there is a video for this song that won some big video competition in Europe. Beautiful and haunting.
CCM's 500 Best Albums Of All Time 
I actually still have the tape (though I don’t think we’ve ever met) A shame. Loved “Call my Name” and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” as well. Love the lis, choices and reviews.
Blessings
TMc
I have it on CD. The joy of working for the record company at the time.
I also have it, as I was managing the music at the Oly Bookstore at the time. Didn’t care much for this one…..LOVED another Swedish band who released two records on Frontline…..one under the band leader’s name….. the other (Superior) record just a single moniker that had nothing to do with the band. I’m being coy in case you are going to have that record, later in the countdown. Don’t want to spoil it.
Make that 4 copies sold…; )
And two of those copies ended up in the hands of Mclaughlins. Funny, but I had those other two tapes of the H****** band and Vi***** as well (being even less coy) and never really got into them as much.
Hey… I bought the CD! I never understood the bird noises on the final track, but it still remains one of the undiscovered gems of CCM. In fact, I’m trying to get our worship team at my church to cover “Prayer.”
Make that another cassette and CD. I loved this album so much, I bought it twice! in fact, the same is true for H****** Band and V******. What can I say: I loved the Swedish bands, including Jerusalem and especially Edin-Adahl. (Jan Groth, anyone?)
TMc, I wasn’t too much into Hogland either (talked to Dave and neither record is in the countdown)but Vincent was really great…..although a lot of my affection was in relation to the weakness of much of the Christian product of the day.
Go McLaughlins!
I have this on CD ($2 on Amazon) and I love it! I remember driving around town in high school listening to this with my friends who had no idea they were a Christian band. I did that alot back then. One of the best new wave releases in CCM. Up there with MATW.
I listened to this in the “listening room” at my little Christian book store in Indiana, called Light and Life, and LOVED it! (So am I the 8th or 9th person who bought it?) My friends and I were always finding new bands and sharing them with each other. I introduced this one, but no one else bit!? I still love Walk On Water. Thanks for listing it, and sharing some of the back story!
Not a bad little album. Singer kinda reminds me of The Choir a littlebit.
I’m glad to see this one get a little love. I still love to pull this one out from time to time. Undiscovered gem.
I liked this album a lot around 1992-1993. Don’t listen to it as much today, but I get nostalgic for it on occasion. They did put out another album that didn’t make it into the US. I never got to actually hear it. From what I understand, it was essentially a worship album with not as much synths. I saw the album cover. There was a link to it at christiannewwave a few years back but it might be gone now.
The follow up album was called Så länge jag lever. It came out in 1994.
I bought it as well. Thank God for magazines like Harvest Rock Syndicate, who covered all sorts of albums back in the day. Really liked this album, and I’m rather sad I don’t have it anymore.
I grew up listening to this record. I am 19 and still listen to it all the time!! I’m so glad that my parents introduced me to them when I was younger!!
Hello!
I´m the swede that can you tell you a little more about this band. The members came from 2 secular bands. The marvellous synthpop band Fake and the europop band +1. Both groups had big hits in Sweden in the mid 80`s. Actually Fake had hits in Italy and France as well. When they were in the recording process for this record they became christians. They changed the lyrics and that gave the secular record company a scare. They managed to get it released even though luckily. After this record they had some member changes and released a more worship oriented record in 1994 called “Så länge jag lever” independently released from their church. This song actually got more wellknown when swedish christian Eurovision star Carola covered it later. I have both their records on CD and the above listed on LP (signed) as well. Also have the 7″ “What´s the noise” that got a swedish grammis (for the video I think)
/Robert, Sweden.
Thanks for the info, Robert! I would love to have a copy of it but have no way to get one. Any chance you can burn me a copy?
I immediately thought of AA.
I bought the album on cassette. 1990. Took it with me to Desert Storm. Reeling from a broken engagement and then preparing for the largest military deployment since WW2, I found myself singing Call My Name – a lot.
It’s me. I’m the other person who bought this. Found it on eBay in 2000, after having the title track and Time stuck in my head for the the better part of a decade.