Josh Garrels makes Christian music in roughly the same way that Isaiah was a traveling evangelist; it’s true enough, I reckon, and the content of Garrels’ music is distinctly Christian, but there’s an integrity to what he does—and I dare say a degree of severity—that renders the label a bit inadequate. His is not worship music, not a set of sing-alongs intended for congregational use, though it should be noted that it comes with many moments of bowed-knee awe and humility. That sense of holy trembling comes organically, the result of considering the sheer weight of love and grace against all the darkness and treachery of the human world, and indeed, the very heart of man.

Garrels’ is a prophetic voice, then, and he delivers his songs—glad tidings and sad laments in equal measure—not as dogma, but as the convictions of one who knows all too well how lost he is apart from the hand of Love. His latest record is a particularly weighty thing—but then, of course it is. The name of it is Love & War & The Sea In Between, and, at 18 songs, Garrels says it is inspired by the sheer scale and thematic complexity of the great Russian novels. He is, obviously, cruising for a major letdown. One could criticize this work for being bloated, overlong, and self-serious, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a mighty whallop of a record, one that transcends its own implicit pomposity to become something truly rousing, deeply human and aching for the Holy.

And lest Garrels’ gifts as a record-maker be overlooked by the boldness of his writing, let it be said that what impresses most about the album is the fact that it not only hangs together, but does so with uncanny aplomb. Obviously, it is a very big record, tackling big ideas and presenting them as a series of interlocking ideas, and musically, the thing is a little all over the place. Opener “White Owl” is a spooky, jazz-tinted epic that nods to Ray Lamontagne at his most mystical, and it dovetails quite nicely into the folksy ramble of “Flood Waters.” Two songs later and we hit a hip-hop, or at least trip-hop song, with Garrels doing a Gil Scott-Heron reminiscent (and referencing) spoken word piece over a pulsing electro beat. Later there are nods to European folk music, and even an accordion-led waltz. And would you believe that it all fits rather seamlessly? Garrels sequences everything in a way that makes sense both musically and thematically; the record unfolds like a good novel, and its parts all make sense in the context of each other. The clearest indicator that this record is structured to play: It’s 18-songs long, and it’s pretty tough to stop listening before it reaches the end.

Garrels is a splendid vocalist, which is good, because this material calls for it. He sounds a bit like Lamontagne, actually, or Sam Beam at his most robust, and he’s equally adept at setting the town with chilly falsetto in “White Owl,” full-throated hopefulness in “Farther Along,” and a malcontent’s rabble-rousing speechifying in “The Resistance.” These songs call for all of it, because they contain all of it: Hopefulness that gives way to brokenness, defiance that gives way to humility, and, in the end, a sense of wonder at it all.

Indeed, as the album title suggests, these songs represent a spectrum, but they are mostly about the uneasy tension that makes up the in-between. “Flood Water” sets the tone early on, borrowing a trope that’s been popular among folk musicians since the days of the Great Depression (at least); the flood waters rise, and exactly what they represent—social, economic, personal, or spiritual meltdown—is not really the point. Garrels’ song makes it clear that love keeps us all afloat, a sentiment that’s wonderful and ridiculous and true. He is more precise about his own failings—about all of our failings, as humans—in the more relational songs. “Slip Away” is quietly devastating, a ballad of neglect and betrayal that makes apathy seem like a greater sin than the war of the album’s title, and “Ulysses” is, wonderfully, a nod to Greek myth that becomes a story of being lost in a world of temptation and, ultimately, despair.

But the album is not despairing, not ultimately. Actually, there is a nod of defiance early on in “The Resistance,” where Garrels speaks/raps a powerful indictment of human institutions that are built on injustice and lead only to ruin. It’s exhilarating, and empowering, but while it’s rousing call to arms is both the album’s standout moment and  a necessary piece of the puzzle, Garrels seems to put more stock in the hope of a better world, coming “Farther Along” the path. This song points to heavenly intervention and ultimately divine rule as the cure for what ails, and the same truths echo at the album’s end, with a few songs that make a logical jump from human depravity to reliance on the Divine—and ultimately, to our own innate neediness not as a cause for utter despondency, but as an invitation to consider the mysteries of grace.

Those mysteries swirl around this record, informing it and enlivening it, and Garrels bears witness to them with authenticity. He is not shy about exalting the name of Christ the Savior, something that I suspect will be a turn-off to those with little patience for anything resembling religious faith in practice, but there is none of the sentimental spirituality of “Christian rock” here, nor indeed could I imagine many of these songs of struggle making it into any church’s rotation. They are powerful not as religious songs per se but as folk songs, as songs that speak to some austere truth in a way that longs to embrace some sense of the sublime, but remains, for now, wonderfully and pitiably human.