Reviewed by Paddy Hudspith

Rick Roman has been a musician since 1966, a Christian since 1972 and, from 1988 onwards, a producer of his own recordings out of a home studio "in the family shed" in Wonder Lake, Illinois. Rick was a member of Harvest during the 1970s, then the trio Christian Raw Dog (formerly Raw Dog) who produced four independent albums in the 1990s, but currently he focuses alone on his Synthetic Music Machine project as it is "more true to what is happening in his life." It's clear from the 18 tracks on 'Journey To The Son' that Rick is quite an accomplished musician, but similar quality is lacking in his songwriting. His preferred approach is to offer us chunks of Scripture or other quotes (Smith Wigglesworth) verbatim around a theme, and sing (or just speak, as with the Caleb story during "Troubled Times") over the top of tunes that often have some interesting instrumental and melody ideas. There's not enough consistency or clarity here for my liking, and very few tracks actually come together as good songs; a couple of exceptions are jaunty folk rocker "The Upward Call" with its strong chorus hook, and "The Promised Land" which uses an acoustic worship approach with restraint and consequent potential. More stringent quality control is needed to focus and develop Rick's better song ideas. Similarly, there clearly is no-one around to rein in the "anything goes" home-made production style; "produced by the Grace of the Lord" sounds good for the sleeve, but not so much for the ears. Some keyboard and drum sounds particularly sound cheap and tarnish the rest, a shame given Rick's obvious time and effort. To cap it all, one major mis-step is especially hard to forgive: "Tyler And Thomas" features two cheeky young chappies given a microphone and a free rein to mangle Rich Mullins classic chorus "Awesome God" (which is not credited), lyrics wrong, etc. A cute moment for the family records perhaps, but not for a serious musician's debut solo offering. 'Journey To The Son' is available free to download.

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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