Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

I spent a pleasant half an hour recently perched on a leather settee chatting with Mark Schultz, Pleasant but unremarkable - a bit like this album. Like so many American releases, it's smoothly produced, sincerely recorded with meaningful songs that glide past in their sonic perfection. I am sure that he's going to be huge in the USA but I am left with a simple question. Why? Apparently when they play the tearjerker 'He's My Son' (about a father whose son is dying of cancer) on American radio, stations are inundated with telephone calls and e-mails. He's managed to touch a spot in the same way Michael W Smith's 'Place In This World' touched those with loved ones in the Gulf war. Like Smithy, Schultz mixes emotional piano ballads with energetic pop like "When You Give", "I Am The Way" and "Legend Of McBride". Like Smithy, his piano playing flows throughout the whole album but still it leaves me disappointed. Maybe it's the stubble, maybe it's the fact that he's a piano player but for, all its polish, I left with the strong impression that Schultz is just a poor man's Michael W Smith for the 21st century. Mark W Schultz anybody?

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