Plus One, the Contemporary Christian music world’s answer to
\nBackstreet Boys and *NSYNC, apparently titled their sophomore
\neffort
\nObvious<\/i> as a challenge to believers – namely, to make their
\nbeliefs obvious in their daily lives. After all, aren’t the band’s
\nbeliefs obvious on this disc?<\/p>\n
Uh, no… and thank God for that. I loathe listening to CCM
\nwhich takes the message and beats me over the head with it, warning
\nme I’m going to hell if I’m not born again. (To quote Dennis Miller
\n– and, by the way, props to him for a great two years on “Monday
\nNight Football” – pardon me for getting it right the first time.)
\nPlusOne doesn’t do this on
\nObvious<\/i>, instead delivering their message more coyly,
\nwrapped up in a harder edge to the music and lyrics which often
\nallow the listener toderive their own manings.<\/p>\n
Yet
\nObvious<\/i> shows the frailties that almost every boy-band faces
\nat some point in their careers – namely, fighting to stay sounding
\nfresh in a market which is already supersaturated. Backstreet Boys
\nhave fought with this. *NSYNC has fought with this. New Kids fought
\nwith this, and lost. Now, it’s Plus One’s turn – and while the
\nalbum is pleasing in general, I almost wish they had gone a little
\nmore in the direction of clarity.<\/p>\n
I admit I’m at a disadvantage, since I’m working off an advance
\nrelease copy of this disc, and I have no liner notes or lyric
\nsheets. But there are times I do wish I had a clearer picture of
\nwhat the group – Gabe Combs, Nathan Walters, Nate Cole, Jeremy
\nMhire and Jason Perry – were singing about, since their vocals are
\noften partially obscured by the music. It’s not a weakness that
\nterribly dilutes the enjoyment and the power of songs like
\n“Camouflage,” “Kick Me” and “Calling Down An Angel,” but it does
\nseem like their message isn’t always getting out there like the
\nband might have hoped it would.<\/p>\n
And while
\nObvious<\/i> is an enjoyable album right off the bat, I still am
\nnot totally convinced that Plus One is ready to go after the
\npresent 800-pound gorillas of the teeny-bop market. This has
\nnothing to do with their CCM style of music – as mentioned before,
\nthere’s enough leeway on many of these songs where the listener
\ncould even take a non-religious view of the music and find it
\nenlightening – but more that they’re still working out just what
\nkind of a band they want to be musically. These are, after all,
\nyoung men who are coming into their own on many facets of the
\nmusical spectrum, with band members sharing in writing (and, on two
\ntracks, some fo mof production) chores. The chances are good that
\nPlus One does have what it takes to be considered a big name in the
\nboy-band field; they’re still working towards that goal,
\nhowever.<\/p>\n
\nObvious<\/i> is not the definitive statement from Plus One;
\nrather, it’s a portrait of the group on their own journey. It’s a
\nstep up from their previous effort, and has enough charisma to be
\nembraced even by those who do not like Contemporary Christian
\nmusic. With a little more polish and more maturity as songwriters
\nand producers (something I don’t mean as an insult), they could be
\nlarger than their own genre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6344],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37334","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-plus-one","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37334"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}