The challenge with any Christian band is to sound appealing to a
\nmainstream audience while having a message pure enough to appeal to
\nChristians.<\/p>\n
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Members with Christians are not
\nChristian bands per se, like Chevelle and U2, while those who have
\nhad crossover success have their faith called into question, like
\nAmy Grant and P.O.D.<\/p>\n
It is highly unlikely that Poor Old Lu will ever reach a degree
\nof success, which is a shame, because they sound great. Longtime
\nfans of the group may resist
\nThe Waiting Room<\/i>, their newest release, but anyone new to
\nthe band will notice the made-for-radio songs.<\/p>\n
Taking five years off from recording, the Seattle quartet
\nlearned how to produce, and the songs here could easily fit
\nalongside Puddle of Mudd and 3 Doors Down on rock radio. As with
\nmost modern rock, though, the emphasis is on power chords and
\nangst-ridden vocals, not guitar pyrotechnics and drum solos (oh,
\nhow I miss the ’70s, and I was born in 1983).<\/p>\n
Anyway, there is not much here to distinguish this record from
\nsimilar-sounding peers, which means if you like what’s on rock
\nradio, you will like this. The group shows some restraint in the
\nvocals, never resorting to screaming or rapping; lyrically, lines
\nlike “I hope for strength to stand \/ I hope to be the man that I
\nshould be” pepper the album with more emotion than usual for this
\ntype of band, but less than Poor Old Lu has offered in the past
\n(check out their 1998 song “Rail” for an example.)<\/p>\n
There are small flourishes here and there that pique interest —
\nthe U2-sounding introduction to “Sunlight and Shadows,” the funky
\ninstrumental “Interlude,” the acoustic moodiness of “Praying” —
\nand the music is never explicitly Christian or mainstream. Which is
\ngood news to fans of this sound, but falling in the middle of the
\nscale is a dangerous ground to walk, and Poor Old Lu needs a little
\nmore to offer before they attempt it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":26943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7118],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-38251","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-poor-old-lu","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38251","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38251"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}