Reviewed by Andrew Reeve-Smith

Oliver provides us with an encouraging album of self-penned traditional gospel, ballads and reggae songs with an authentic Jamaican feel. The album starts with a couple of up-beat, memorable reggae numbers, especially the great "Voting For Jesus" which is very catchy, exhorting us to vote for Jesus "my priminister", his spelling not mine! The earlier ballads are very strong, especially "Short Time" encouraging us to do all we can for the Kingdom in the short time we have on earth. This track has dub-poetry by K King, doing a fantastic impression of Martin Luther King. Don't know whether this is intentional, but it brought a smile to my face! Sadly, the album isn't so strong at the end, and those album fillers are quite weak, made all the more so by repetitive synth playing. That's the only thing that lets this album down. I associate traditional gospel ballads with emotion, passion and the ability to alter the tempo and feel of a song as the Holy Spirit leads. I get the impression that the synth and drum machines here are a restriction to Oliver as they don't allow his excellent singing to improvise with emotion while often sounding dated. Oliver's voice deserves a more acoustically, raw sound. Bring on the band!

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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