Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

Eddie Boyes (as recounted in Time Tunnels, CR42), was a member of arguably British CCM's best band of the '60s, The Crossbeats.  'The Promise' is the follow-up to 'The Call', from 1995, and the two are identical in concept, using existing Christian music, in this case on the theme of God's promises and faithfulness, put together into a musical-style format.  Both 'The Call' and 'The Promise' have toured extensively over the past few years, playing everywhere from churches to prisons; on tour, it's performed by a choir of 100-plus, to sequenced backing tracks, with a live band, drama and dance.  Here the old hymns "Standing On The Promises" and "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" sit alongside recent (and fairly recent) songs by such as Kevin Prosch, Robin Mark, Steven Curtis Chapman, David Ruis, Graham Kendrick, Chris Bowater, Twila Paris and Heartbeat.  The sequencing is well done, the lead guitar of Peter Davies comes over crisply, the production in general is good and even the spoken links are not too obtrusive.  As an aid to personal worship, I enjoyed it; some original material wouldn't have come amiss, perhaps for the next one (and there will be a next one, Eddie assures me of that), The Crossbeats SongWriting Academy could be persuaded to come out of retirement!  Eddie and his team have obviously put in a lot of hard work, and their outreach to Merseyside and The North-West deserves our support and prayers.

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