Исполнитель: Preacha
Альбом: Geography Of A Journey
Жанр: House / Trance
Количество треков: 10
Размер файла: 51244 KB
Track list:
01 - Tormential Pain (stage 1)
02 - Bring Me Joy (stage 7)
03 - All This Love I'm Giving (stage 9)
04 - Thank God (stage 6)
05 - We Lift Our Voices (stage 10)
06 - Point Of No Return (stage 5)
07 - Inner Peace (stage 2)
08 - Only You (stage 4)
09 - Reachin' (stage 3)
10 - Faith For The Future (stage 8)
Review from The Phantom Tollbooth
Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective
Cameron Dante is the current frontman of World Wide Message Tribe, but before that he lived a lot. He has been a DJ in the Spanish club resorts on the Mediterranean, visited the UK charts as a member of Bizarre Inc., and lived the notorious sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll lifestyle. All this changed when he became a Christian (except the rock 'n' roll or, more accurately, dance music). This album, released a while back (1996) in the UK, is something of a musical autobiography from Cameron.
It is sometimes difficult to categorize dance music unless you're something of an expert on the multitude of sub-genres that have sprung up in the last few years, but this album can be pretty easily added to the 'house' category. The drum machine-created beats are an almost constant feature and are built up with many different keyboard sounds, some of which clearly carry the signature of co-producer Zarc Porter (recognizable from his work with the World Wide Message Tribe).
Each track is related in the liner notes with a different stage in Cameron's life, but they do not flow in chronological order. Initially this seems strange, and it stops the album from holding together as a concept work, but musically it has a flow which would probably be destroyed by changing the track order.
There is a mixture of instrumentals and tracks with vocals, but given the right mixes many of these would fit seamlessly with any radio programme featuring this style. Given the album's age (it's heading for 18 months since the UK release) I was a little worried that some of the sounds would be dated, but while this sort of thing is no longer flavour of the month, and it certainly isn't groundbreaking, the songs aren't so transient that they can no longer be enjoyed.
Given that Cameron made his name as a rapper, by track four I was wondering where the onslaught of rapping was. The main body of the vocals are from soulful female vocalists, with the odd male singer popping up. It isn't until track seven, "Inner Peace," that there is much rapping. This track has a spacey feel to some of the sounds, with a fairly slow beat and a few jazzy brass sounds thrown in. The rap is laidback, and, like most of the lyrics on the album, is totally upfront and honest:
Looking back, I never knew I had a problem.
Life was good, or so I thought until I saw them
I thought they were accusing
Telling me that my life, I was abusing
I never had a reason to trust fate,
I never had a reason to celebrate
I never had a reason to live,
I was prepared to take and not to give
Cause I'm too hot to handle and too cold to hold
If you're looking for deep lyrics, then this album will be a disappointment. But within its genre it stands pretty well lyrically, and doesn't suffer from the cheesy raps of so many Christian releases. Some of the vocals elsewhere do begin to sound a little cliched, but not so much that they ruin my enjoyment of the music.
One thing that this album does seem to lack is the aggressive sounds I was expecting after hearing newer World Wide Message Tribe tracks like "Hypocrite." This is a bit of a disappointment for me, but maybe they wouldn't fit in all that well with the pop-house sounds of the rest of the album.
The production is consistent, and although this project doesn't really shine in any particular area, it is a solid piece of work that could easily provide a number of good singles.
By James Stewart
0.0/0
