Reviewed by Mark Sherwood

Okay. I came to this album with some reservations, my previous experience of this Orange County four-piece band was the Spy Hunter video. I thought Spy Hunter was unnecessarily violent. It is symptomatic I feel of Christian rock at the moment - too many bands are trying to attract a secular audience by watering down lyrics and videos that leave you scratching your head thinking what was that all about? It's hard to divorce their past from this album however I will try. I will say that they write at times excellent lyrics (check out "Sincerely Ichabod") which has the line "We once drew some lines in black/And right now it's about time we took them back/So bored of losing ground to the heresy in our hearts" - is this a separation to some of the past controversy - they leave us guessing. Perhaps if they want to leave it behind then so should we and take this album on its own merits. Then there are other lyrics which are completely obscure ("Necktie Remedy"/"Cavity King") or maybe I'm missing something. The music is hard but the more you listen the more you realise the subtleties of their music. P 86 fans will probably have already picked this album up and if you are new to them then this is probably a good place to start. I personally want to reserve judgement and see what happens especially a new video from this album.

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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