First Thoughts
In this section I will discuss what I am expecting from the album, what I thought of previous releases, what I've heard about the album, Sometimes how I got it, and a few other things. If I have a band bio up for the artist, it will be linked. Another thing, if there is some form of a deluxe edition of an album, I normally buy it. In such cases, I will write a review of the album WITHOUT taking the additional content into consideration, and a review of the deluxe edition will be posted later on, with a link to the review of the normal album. Now on to the review. (I don't have a hard copy of this one, the story is something I put in there because how I got the album is something that I will be putting in this section for the majority of my reviews).
I learned a lesson today, It's not all bad when your mother takes you with her for a day of looking around at garage sales. While she was looking at table cloths, I decied to go through the box of CDs sitting on on of the folding tables. There in the middel of the box was a coppy of the Preview EP for the Newsboys album, Born Again. Even though the album was coming out in a couple of weeks, I shelled out $2.50 for it. Man it would be nice if my local walmart would lighten up and carry CCM (contemporary christian music) CDs...
Rating Breakdown
In this section I will do two things, give a short summery of the album, and talk about wet her or not it met my expectations. I will also have a chart rating each song on a scale of 0 to 5 (displayed with stars), both lyrically, and instrumentally, the rating of the lyrics and the instrumental will be averaged to get the final rating for each song. (even though this blog will center around christian music and I probably won't need to rate anything this way, I intend to make another site about alterative music in general where I may need to rate stuff like this, songs with annoying, awful, or repulsive lyrics or instrumentals will be rated as 1 to 5 axes, 5 axes being the worst rating in the book) I will also rate, the artwork (this includes the front cover, the back cover with the track listing, the disc, any pictures under the disc, and the picture on the inside of the case door), the liner notes(these two things will not be rated if I downloaded the album through iTunes or AmazonMP3) and If the CD is enhanced, I will also rate the enhanced content. To get the album's final rating, I will average the final rating of each song, and the rating of the three things mentioned above.
Well, that was worth buying. It is no master piece, but I would do it again.
A Closer Look at: The Standouts
In this section I will take a closer look at the best (in the Standouts section), and worst songs on the album (in the Standouts... In a bad way section). I will talk about the instrumentals, the lyrics, how the two mesh, what I like about them, what I don't like about them, and on occasion I may talk about how I think the not so great songs could be improved.
Born Again.
Born Again is a song about finding yourself, and finding God at the same time. It's amazing how many people think the can just go alone. Here's a line from the chorus "I didn't want to fall, But I don't have to crawl, I met the one with two scared hands" None of us want to fall, but sometimes we need to, just so we can see that we aren't perfect, and we need help. "Born Again" illustrates this very well, showing that even if we do fall, God is there to help us up.
One Shot
This one was a good idea. This song illustrates that everybody has one chance, one try, one shot, or maybe one life is a better way to say it. One life to decide whether or not we want to be with God, one life to decide if we will live for God even though most other people don't. The lyrics are good, but the instrumental is better. The guitar is in a tone that can get annoying, but it is played in way that sounds really cool.
A Closer Look at: The Standouts... In a Bad Way
I'll Be
This one isn't terrible, but I didn't really like it. They had a good idea with the lyrics, but you know what the say, Presentation is everything. The instrumental is ok, and the lyrics have a good point, but they need to be re-worded, as they are, they just don't click in my head (I also needed something to put in this section since it will be here in every other review).
Further Discussion
Final thoughts
In this section I will say what I think about the album, and give a final rating. Sorry about the junky looking stars.
They did pretty good for this being a preview, I am satisfyed with my purchase, I hope the full album is this good.
Over All:
