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Mercy Streets Soundtrack Artist: Various Label: N'Soul Records Time: 12 tracks/57:23	Samples

If Mercy Streets, the new movie by Providence Entertainment and Signal Hill Pictures coming out on October 31st, is as accomplished as its soundtrack, it may well be worth seeing. The movie is a followup to "The Omega Code" and is squarely aimed at the "Christian market"; draw your own conclusions as you like based on this information.

Having said that, it should be noted early and repeatedly that not all these types of music were ever meant to be housed together on one disc. The CD opens with Moby's "Run On" and a rocky, guitar-driven remix of Sixpence None the Richer's "Love." Both are highlights of the CD. Unfortunately, their particular mood is mismatched with what follows -- "If You Really Want It" by FROS'T and featuring the Gospel Gangstaz, and "Gonna Make You Move" by AJ Mora. And once the listener is adjusted to the funky hip hop
groove of those two tracks, beware, because next up is Jennifer Knapp's "A Little More." It's the audio equivalent of trying to drive 40mph on a little country road after driving a cool 80 on the freeway. It's nice in its way -- and the scenery is beautiful -- but it feels so *slow* after what you're used to...  and look out for that school zone, a.k.a. "When All Around Has Fallen" by Delirious.

Once all this has settled out, the CD falls squarely into N*Soul territory with tracks by Faith Massive, Cloud2Ground, Audity, and Antidote. All good stuff, but again, quite a mood swing from the slow stuff.

"Tambourine" by Steffan Fantini sounds almost like it came out of the '60s (when else would there be a song called "Tambourine"?). The concluding track is Keaton Simons' "Currently," which is a lovely little love song (vocals and acoustic guitar only), and a nice note on which to wrap things up.

So the rundown is that there are no bad tracks here. All are strong, which is as it should be for a soundtrack. But the track "order," as it were, leaves something to be desired. If you own a CD-RW, many of these songs would be better off mixed with more closely related music, and in that case, by all means, buy the CD.

Lisa Reid 10/23/2000