Reviewed by Simon Redfern

'Join 2 Sing' is the debut CD from a duo hailing from Covington, Washington, USA. Jeremiah Savage and Nathanael Vossler have been working together in musical ministry since they were in their early teens, with this CD being the result of an experimental session in vocal dubbing one afternoon! The tunes though are thankfully not what you would be tempted to call experimental as there has obviously been a great deal of attention paid to the production of the CD overall in terms of the visual and musical presentation. The songs are done completely acappella, which in the UK market will probably conjure up memories of The Flying Pickets; if this is what you're expecting then you are unlikely to be disappointed with a mixture of this with classically tinged harmonies summing up the style. That alone works well with the vocals being good quality and well edited to give good depth, but I have to admit I found many tracks such as "Child Of The Great I Am" and "It's Your Love" crying out for music to add a dash of impact to the flavouring. I found one track sounded very much like another with the vocal arrangements being far too samey. All but two of the 13 tracks are written by the duo themselves and as a result, the lyrical content is very personal and from the heart - not a bad thing in itself, but I did find that this made some tracks more difficult to latch on to. A good example of this is "Gift" which was written by Jeremiah to his wife on the occasion of their wedding; I am sure Mrs Savage appreciated the sentiments, but for the average listener this highly personal content doesn't connect.

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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