Reviewed by Jeremy Olsen

Word describes this as a concept album and it takes child abuse as its subject matter. The album is made up of a series of songs, Bible passages and dramas with the whole set lasting around 50 minutes. Confusingly the track list contains a title which is not actually on the CD. The lyrics of the songs are quite strong and cover many aspects of abuse and as a whole the album represents something which is quite powerful in its presentation style. Unfortunately, in general listening terms the dramas have quite a short listening life and once you have heard them four or five times you'll probably want to skip them. Musically, the album is decidedly middle of the road and is unlikely to set the music scene alight but there are a couple of tracks which stand out from the rest, these being "Shadow In Your Eyes" and the final song of the album "Beyond The Sky". The rest of the album is competently held together by the voices of Julie Miller (tragically abused as a child), Christina Dent, Nancy Bryan and John A Schreiner with some notably haunting work by all of them. Overall, this album has quite a limited audience appeal, for those who have been involved in child abuse in any way I would suggest the album is very potent, for others the musical content is average.

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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