Reviewed by Lins Honeyman

According to their website, one of the reasons that this 2015 album by US Christian parody band ApologetiX is titled 'Play Nice' is because "it contains a pair of parodies of artists associated with a softer sound plus four and half songs fronted by females." That rather tenuous explanation aside, the Pittsburgh collective continue in their multi-album mission to communicate the Gospel via Christianising mainstream songs. Amongst the more familiar numbers, ABBA's "Dancing Queen" is turned into the biblical tale of Esther in "Desperate Queen" whilst an impressive musical facsimile of Alannah Myles' biggest hit "Black Velvet" is somewhat hampered by the insertion of some rather clumsy replacement lyrics. As mentioned in previous reviews of the band's sizeable back catalogue, this is rather the problem. Whilst it's hard to fault the band for their musical recreations of a diverse range of material, the superimposing of Christian lyrics onto existing works by other artists feels shoe-horned and wordy and, as a result, the message contained within these augmentations isn't always clearly communicated. Nonetheless, the band's take on Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping", Poison's "Unskinny Bop" and "We Got The Beat" by the Go-Go's are fun and there is still plenty to enjoy here for established ApologetiX fans.

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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