Idea – Stone Sharpens The Blade – 1985

History as a rule is not kind to 80’s CCM bands. Not that history remembers them poorly, instead history just doesn’t remember them at all and Idea is a great example of this. If you search for info on them almost all the information comes from the band themselves. History shows one album, one EP, and a few singles released in the 80’s. What history has forgotten about Idea is that toured Australia extensively and opened for the biggest CCM names and the band was very well known by Australian Christian music listeners. As for the album history does remember that the band did get backing to cut 2 tracks in the studio, “Turn Up The Tapes”, and “Eve Of Destruction”. Strangely they didn’t put “Turn Up The Tapes” on the album which kind of confuses me but hey it’s their album. “Eve of Destruction” did make it onto the album and is a pretty darn good cover. The rest of the album was, and I’m quoting the band here “so we hired an extra mixer desk, plenty of FX modules, some good fold-back speakers and with our normal onstage gear, we set them all up in Darryl and Lyn’s lounge room rental house in Menai and recorded live in one take onto a Revox stereo 1/4” tape machine”. Well they did a pretty good job because it sounds great. Note that the cassette release got a bonus track “Ambushed”. Anyway I think history should be kinder to Idea but unfortunately this is an industry where these great 80’s artists have just been forgotten about. Give this one a listen you won’t be disappointed and quite frankly we should have all heard this one in 1985 but for some reason us in America just weren’t allowed to.

Tracklist
1 – Lucky One – 3:24
2 – Voice Crying In The Wilderness – 3:32
3 – Now That We Found Out – 3:12
4 – Daring – 3:07
5 – Light The Light – 3:54
6 – As The World Turns – 5:44
7 – Eve Of Destruction – 3:56
8 – Ambushed – 3:28

Credits
Design – Brian Livingston Clark
Guitar, Synthesizer, Vocals – Darryl Thompson
Keyboards, Vocals – Billy Nielson
Percussion, Vocals – Steve Lyne
Photography By – Richard Peake
Vocals – Rod Boucher

Companies, etc.
Manufactured By – RCA Limited Australia and New Zealand
Distributed By – RCA Limited Australia and New Zealand
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Idea
Copyright © – DTS Music