Reviewed by Stephen Adams

TLOC consists of longstanding friends Thomas Crain, Fredrick Anderson and Dwayne Jackson from Oceanside, California. With song titles such as "Jesus He's My Friend", "God Is Able", "He's Coming Back", etc, it's plain to see that T-Loc have their hearts and motives in the right place. However, such titles usually denote that the artist has regurgitated every Christian clichE that fits the title into the song, which is unfortunately what happens often on this CD. Although, obviously written with evangelistic intent, I can't help but ask why Christian musicians can't be a bit more original with such themes rather than following a formula. My quibble with the songwriting wasn't helped by the poor production values. Reginald C Wadlington is credited with the production, but with the often thin, dated drum machine beats and keyboard-sequenced music, you wish T-Loc had a meatier, gospel band sound, which would give their lyrics more of a punch, while the vocals needed better mixing, as sometimes they sounded mushy and at times the singers went out of tune. Only the title track stands out, as the vocals are delivered with more passion than usual and the production is somewhat better too. T-Loc need to find new ways of grabbing the attention of the secular listeners with their message and update their sound, as a brief look at the charts tells me that they will find it difficult with this CD

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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