Reviewed by Paul S Ganney

Without any "hit songs" how do you compile a "best of"? The approach taken here is for the two founding members of the California-based band, Paul and Matt Liffengren, to pick either their favourites or the songs the hard rockers played the most live. The production values, particularly the drum sounds, are very much of their time and if you like the musical approach of Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, etc you might well want to investigate this compilation. "Are You There?" contains some good guitar work punctuating the vocals; the track has a slight theatrical feel to it that I rather liked. The best tracks seem to come from the CD '54 And Change' (although I wasn't too sure about some of the guitar work on "Sacrifice" - a bit too much Van Halen without quite nailing it) and overall you can see why these songs were live favourites (especially the ballad "Time Will Tell") - although I should point out that these have been remixed for this compilation. Lyrically, "Man In The Middle/Remember Me" is probably the best - it's a telling of the story of the thief crucified alongside Jesus. Overall? If you missed Sure Conviction during their heyday in the '90s then this would be a reasonable memento.

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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