Reviewed by Andy Charalambous

The Love And Joy Gospel Choir are a multi-racial outfit hailing from the city of Liverpool which over the years has been synonymous for a number of things - but not all a gospel choir producing their own album. As the choir's name would suggest, you could in fact be fooled into thinking that the album's material contains an excursion into the black gospel sound until you listen to the opening track - which completely throws you off balance whilst expecting a horde of voices to blast out the name of Jesus in typical black gospel fashion. OK, so I am guilty of stereotyping a choir bearing the name gospel amidst its title, but after a few bouts of listening to their work I did find that some of the tracks began to grow on me even though they were not what I expected. One thing is for sure however, that they have a very fine lead singer in Paul Bentley whose voice is a positive throw back to the crooning mode of the mid 60s. He does a wonderful job in bringing out the best in such tracks as "Promise Of Love" and "Majestic God" while the choir's sound as a whole on the remainder of the album lacks the vibrancy and zest generally attributed to those choirs based south of Watford. Instrumentally, the album is fairly tight, reflecting a good production which overall I found to be pleasing as there are some nice touches. But there's little here to encourage a postal purchase.

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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