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Here's an album with one goal in mind, to help the listener learn the Bible. One needs to proceed with care in an endeavor like this. To be effective, the music shouldn't overtake the lyrics and the lyrics should be simple enough to be learned in a short period of time. Then the combination of the two, must blend to comfortably accomplish task at hand. The Messenger Project, which consists of Garden Grove, California musicians uses the NIV, KJV, and The Santa Biblia (for Spanish listeners) as its text and modern music as its accompaniment. This is where the project breaks down some. It's not that one can't use any style of music to spread the Word, it's the balance of the words and music that must be considered. It's always a pleasure to hear the Word, but this project is too complex musically at times to accomplish the goal of learning the Bible. The musically softer songs and the Spanish titles work the best. "If You Are the Son of God" is one of the stronger cuts on the disc as it mixes the music and lyrics in a way to emphasize the struggle between Jesus and Satan during the temptation in the desert. It must be noted that this disc is not for Bible memorization, but is a performance/adaptation of the Bible with a musical background. A nice touch would be to include the verses covered by each song in the liner notes or after the song titles. The concept of the album is good, but the pressures of writing music to the best Lyricist the world has ever heard sometimes fall short. Samples can be heard at http:www.mp3.com/messengerproject. Sam Hagedorn 2/21/2000
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