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Let me start by saying this: Singing Back to You is a well-produced & polished collection of familiar recent praise and worship classics (and several original songs).  It is a good album which could have been great.  In many cases, the original versions of these songs are preferable.  If your cup of tea is modern praise covers, pick this up.  The difficulty is that this is not really a great album by The Swift, and they are capable of MUCH better.  I want to hear new music by this band, not covers (even if they are very good covers).

I love this band.  More precisely, I love this band’s first album…light hearted piano-based pop rock with flair and fun, kind of the Beatles meets Jellyfish meets PFR (and a cool Keith Green cover thrown in for good measure).  Something changed on the band’s second release Today…, it sounded like some record exec got hold of The Swift and said “hey, let’s make you sound like everyone else on Christian top 40 radio.”  Either that or they band made an ill-advised attempt to grow up and go all adult contemporary on us.  Fast forward to The Swift’s third release Singing Back to You (on the bands new label Rocketown)-which sadly is more of the same as the second release.  Whoever made the decision to mix the piano way down in the mix deserves to have their musical cred stripped away! Piano player and vocalist Britt Edwards has talent in abundance, and I would love to hear him cut loose and do some piano laced pop-rock originals more similar to their first release instead of the more tame and laid back CCM-ish material on Singing Back to You.

After watching the group’s electronic press kit on You-Tube I see they are focusing on the youth market and lead worship at a lot of camps.  This is a worthy goal; I just wish they would go back to doing what made them stand out from the crowded CCM pack…big fun music with hooks galore.

Check it out for yourself:
http://www.myspace.com/theswift

Barry Nothstine hosts Soul Frequency Radio @ http://www.soulfrequency.com - a weekly freeform FM radio show showcasing progressive rock, instrumental rock, power-pop, psychedelic rock, rock classics, blues, and more—great rock for the ages!