Reviewed by Tony Cummings

In America the biggest two new artists to break through into the Christian music big time in the last year have been Disciple and Krystal Meyers. As it turns out of course, Disciple aren't "new" at all but have been around for years as a hard gigging independent. Krystal, though, is brand new to the scene and has scored a major hit with this, her album debut. 16 when she recorded it, the album is one of the freshest and most invigorating debuts you're likely to hear with an exhilarating display of punk pop energy. One substandard review in an American magazine suggested that this sounded like Avril Lavigne's younger sister but in fact such comparisons are unfair and this is much, much more than the old Nashville CCM trick of aping an artist big in the mainstream. Having said that, there is an Avril connection in that the production team The Wizardz Of Oz (who've worked with Ms Lavigne in the past) produce some of the cuts here together with Brit pop maestro Ian Eskelin. What is so clever about 'Krystal Meyers' is that Krystal and her producers have turned the edgy angst of teen rock on its head so that where in the mainstream variety we are bombarded with endless images of rebellion and self-absorption here the singer, on a song like "Anticonformity", boldly shows the lie of peer group pressure in a song of moral and spiritual militancy ("It's all around/Pressure from my so-called friends/It's all around/I'm measured by some stupid trend"). There are plenty of other tracks here, "The Way To Begin", already a number one hit in US Christian radio land, is an honest take on disappointment while "Fire" with its revved up guitars would get any crowd bopping. Check it out.

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