Reviewed by Paul Poulton

I suppose we have odd things happen to us from time to time and Rand is no stranger to strangeness and controversy. The Antichrist In Our Midst was a book he wrote back in 1997 about the Catholic church being the bad guys. Then his wife ups and threatens to kill him; his wife has now been found guilty of domestic violence. Life is a strange concoction of events sometimes. So with all this weirdness going on what shall we make of Rand's CD? Well it's pretty true to form, it's a bit weird. The lyrics are fairly formulaic, not adventurous and stick pretty close to clichés and sermon-type sound bites. Rand's voice is not unpleasant and in a few places is quite appealing, in others the auto-tune should not have been left off. What's a bit strange about it is the music, it's 1980's techno pop slowed down a bit. If Rand had sung using a guitar-based American blues band then I could see he'd have something to offer the music buying community, but the synths and Rand's voice are not unlike a bacon sandwich at a bar mitzvah. He has a leaning towards vocal blues phrasings but that's hard to make work with keyboard sampled noises going on. Of course there is a league of consumers who delight in all things rum, this maybe down their street.

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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