Reviewed by Tony Cummings

At the vicar factory I just recently attended, a wise tutor said that the best way to deliver criticism was to sandwich it with praise. Here goes then. The latest offering from reggae gospel pioneers Christafari is a children's Sunday school album that combines some "old favourites" with new Christafari tracks. In that it succeeds very well, it's just a let down that the standard of the songs is so middle of the road. From a band that has been around for well over a decade and has produced some blindingly good material in the past (hands up everybody who doesn't own a copy of 'Valley Of Decision' - shame on you), 'Reggae Sunday School' unfortunately just smacks of trying to get onto the children's worship bandwagon. It's not that the music is bad, it's just hugely predictable, and the accompanying characters on the soundtrack that intersperse the music are frankly as irritating as a badly produced CD sleeve. Which, come to mention it, is a problem with this CD as well. Before I'm accused of being just utterly malicious in my demolition of this offering, can I say that I loved the track "Zacchaeus". But at the end of the day one track doth not a CD save, and this album would need quite a few more good songs to redeem it.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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