Trust
Artist: G-Powered
Label: K-Tutanto
Time: 10 Tracks / 35 minutes

After five years of taking their dance music around Europe, this Finnish duo is releasing their first album in English. The pop end of the genre is not generally the most thoughtful or spiritual, so it is good to hear the pair pioneering and putting out lyrics full of worship.

The thing that most struck me was how similar Miia Rautkoski sounds to earlier Madonna, both in vocal timbre and the feel of the tracks.

G-Powered won third place in the 2009 International Euro Dance Web Awards, and there is a healthy amount of melody here. However, even with break beats, the Europop sound carried on trance beats means that after a while the songs suffer from a degree of sameness that might disappear if they were stripped back and handled in other ways.

Highlights are the opening track, “The Dream,” which has one of the stronger melodies and breaks for snatches of acoustic guitar; “Still with Me Today,” where Kimmo Korpelo programmes low synth pulses from the start and some electric guitar adds some variety; and the driving “I Belong to You” (it’s striking how much difference some well-placed backing vocals can make). The more memorable title track is probably the album’s lead tune.

These fairly fluently-translated songs are mostly God-directed, with the occasional one aimed at an old friend or someone who blew success. There is a lot about dreams and living well. It is good to see prayerful songs also reflecting on life lived, rather than just praising.

If you’re after some light European trance with Christian content, there’s not much else on offer, so this is worth checking out.

Download:  The Dream, I Belong to You, Trust
 

Derek Walker