Reviewed by Matthew Cordle

Be-Ka is a Canadian duo consisting of Becky Rauser and Harold Eide. They have been writing together and playing live for the last four years and have whittled down 90 songs to 11 for this CD. On first listen I quite enjoyed it as Becky's voice has an appealing character, the musical style making me think immediately of Rebecca St James. The melodies and arrangements are sweet, especially on "Mystery", and there's some nice guitar work, although this occasionally swamps the vocals and is sometimes out of tune. Lyrically, the songs are inspired by the experiences Becky has been through, covering relationships, life as a Christian, thoughts of God, etc, although it seems they are written for a crossover audience, so nothing too overt. A couple of the songs, "In My Life" and "Every Moment" have had some airplay in Canada, but the "Cher" auto-tune effect has been overdone a bit for my liking! Further listening made my ears feel tired, and looking at the waveforms, most of the tracks have been maximised/limited to an extreme level. This probably lends itself to radio play, but on a CD player, it's too much. In fact, the last track actually distorts several times, which is a shame as it 's a beautiful song. Nothing groundbreaking here, but a pleasant collection of songs nonetheless.

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