Charles S. McVey’s new album Animal is a confrontational concept album that unabashedly addresses a God that the singer simply cannot respect. The record is a piano-driven rock album with songs that sound, at first, like traditional pop compositions: strong melodies supported by driving rhythms and organized into verses, bridges and choruses. But the pop framework acts as an agreeable disguise for a very non-pop preoccupation with Christian orthodoxies and the imposing Father figure that motivates them.

McVey has referred to the record as a “spiritual breakup album.” This phrase captures both the pop sensibility and the intense spiritual engagement of the record. The title of the album’s opening song, “The End of Us” sounds like the title of a radio-ready, i’ll-get-over-you-cuz-i’m-strong pop single. But, counter to the radio paradigm, the “us” of the title refers to the broken relationship between McVey and Christ. It’s not a good relationship anymore: “You really should have known when you crawled up on that cross / that this was the beginning of / the beginning of the end of us,” he sings, leading to the bitter chorus: “But what about this love we hold onto? / It’s just a special effect of our long and cruel charade / designed to hold you back / and keep you in your place.”

The record’s title song “Animal” opens with a floating synth over the piano’s melodic line. McVey’s vocals come in as if from far away, modified by an ethereal echoing effect: “I’d run away from you for all of my life.” Those words are the only lyrics in the song and as he sings them over and over they become a sort of inverted mantra, an atheist’s prayer.

McVey emphasizes - and contextualizes - his apostasy by identifying with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ. Judas is the ultimate bad guy of the New Testament, but McVey has sympathy for him. On his website, there is a picture of McVey holding a sign that reads “Pardon Iscariot.” One of the song’s tracks is even more explicitly pro-Judas: “Judas got a raw deal / he did what he did … because he had to.” This isn’t exactly the interpretation of, say, The Passion of the Christ. But what makes a song like this one unsettling is the presentation. “Judas Got a Raw Deal” has a lovely and light piano arrangement that would be fitting for a worship song at a high school youth group. The contradiction of the lyrical content and the musical arrangements is the distinguishing feature of the album and is the heart of McVey’s artistry.

This album is not for the faint of heart - or the sincere of faith. In addition to the openly irreligious subject matter, the album art features photos of homoerotic twists on religious imagery. And on the inside cover of the CD jacket, there are mocking excerpts from Leviticus 18:22, the famous passage (a favorite of gay rights opponents) that forbids homosexual acts. Open the CD case and you can read the words, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it.” Charles S. McVey’s Animal is a pained, yet catchy, rejection of a Christian tradition that would consider such a statement to be God’s holy word.