Pop Music Reviews : The Call: Heavenly Subject, Earthly Range

The Call is trying to accomplish something uncommonly ambitious with rock.

Dealing from a Christian Everyman perspective, the band and its leader, Michael Been, explore some of the deepest, most thought-provoking issues of religious belief and spirituality. The Call’s undogmatic songs are about yearning for connection with the divine, suffering doubts, and finding the hope that allows one to keep on striving for a sense of grace.

The problem, evident from the band’s show on Tuesday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, is that the Call is tackling the biggest subject of all with a limited expressive range.

Whether playing an uplifting anthem, a yearning hymn or a dark and stormy song about failures and quests, Been and company went for big drama and big dynamics in their music. Been’s lyrics, meanwhile, were full of broad concepts, symbols and abstractions.

Missing was the storytelling ability found in the work of rock’s best spiritually oriented songwriters--Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Van Morrison--and in the Bible itself. The show’s constant grand scale, even in the quieter, hymn-like numbers, led to a sense of sameness. By now, Tracy Chapman and Cowboy Junkies have made the pop world safe for a quieter, more intimate kind of intensity, and the Call would do well to explore it.

The group is also scheduled to appear on Friday at the California Theatre in San Diego and on Saturday at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura.

Peregrins, who opened Tuesday, may have the inside track on this year’s pompous-new-band-name award ( peregrine being a $10 word for pilgrim ), but the New York group offered unpretentious, zestfully melodic rock that recalled R.E.M. and 10,000 Maniacs. Deirdre Steinschneider grabbed attention with her powerful, rangy and free-wheeling voice and unaffected manner.