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In my household you know when a rock album is going to be a good rock album and enjoyed by everyone - it's when my wife doesn’t want to turn it off straight away when it starts playing. This is what happened with the new album by Hearts of Saints with the album title of the same name. After a hard day of work, we sat down to eat our meal, we then made our way to the kitchen to clean up and wash up, I put this new album on and straight away my wife started dancing to it....
Read More In my household you know when a rock album is going to be a good rock album and enjoyed by everyone - it's when my wife doesn’t want to turn it off straight away when it starts playing. This is what happened with the new album by Hearts of Saints with the album title of the same name. After a hard day of work, we sat down to eat our meal, we then made our way to the kitchen to clean up and wash up, I put this new album on and straight away my wife started dancing to it. My wife is a fan of the softer side of rock, to put it into a musical box, it would be the female acoustic singers Cathy Burton, Lou Fellingham & Esther Alexander, anything a little bit faster, harder or rockier, she will not like. To see her dancing and enjoying the first track off Heart of Saints, I knew this was going to be an album that everyone would like.
As this is the first time I had heard of the band, I decided to do some research on this four piece. The Kentucky band comprise of singer Craig Felker, drummer Jason Killebrew, guitarist L.J. Granstaff and bassist Joel Purdy, the band were formally know as Special D and spent a few years touring the US picking up fans along the way. The band have shared the spotlight with the likes of TobyMac (Forefront/EMI), Skillet (Atlantic), Family Force 5 (Tooth & Nail/EMI), Jars of Clay (Nettwerk), Third Day (Essential), and Jason Morant as well as playing at some of America’s biggest Christian Festivals.
This 10 track Rock/Dance album kicks off with The Secret, with its amazing intro that bursts the album into life. The chorus that will get you dancing and singing along to all night. Over and Over keeps the pace going with its dance drums beats; I suppose the track and the whole of the album has a twinge of Switchfoot and The Killers.
”The stillness brings a different point of view” is the main line of the chorus of the track Nothing Else which discusses making time for God in our busy days. In all the fast tracks, the musicianship is of top quality and the album produced by Ainslie Grosser has really captured the fullness in the bands sound.
The album doesn’t take a moment to breathe from its high speed stride until track 6, which is the atmospheric power ballad of Recapture Me, showing this band isn’t all amps as loud as you can go, but showing a softer side. The song still has the same venom and passion as the faster, rockier songs.
Breakdown sounds similar to the mainstream rock band Fall Out Boy (at first I thought I was listening to that band), but this again is a glorious track that it had to make it into my standout tracks. The drumming really captures the groove and dance rhythm and sums up the band fully.
I suppose the album had to end at some stage: it has been full of high energy songs that will get you dancing all through the night but the band hold on for one more ballad in Emmanuel which closes the album with what I thought was a calm song, but once the boys get into their flow it doesn’t take long to build into a rock ballad which Hearts of Saints seem to do best.
Heart of Saints have given us 10 tracks of top quality sound in which they have created the perfect cocktail of sound, with a dashing of Rock, a hint of Pop and a squeeze of Dance. This gives the overall taste of Heart of Saints. I wasn’t expecting to like all 10 tracks as sometimes heavy rock albums can be repetitive. Yet these guys have managed to make each track sound different, whilst at the same time keeping each track the same high quality as the track before. Hearts of Saints could be worth checking out.
Review by Jono Davies
LTTM Rating 4 out of 5 Stars
Standout Tracks
The Secret
Recapture Me
Breakdown
