Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

The explosion of technology means that across the land there are plenty of Christian musicians beavering away on their keyboards, laying down tracks and writing songs. Until recently Emunah were another such conglomeration desir­ing to put their wares onto CD and to minister to you, dear reader. We get the chance to hear plenty such recordings and generally over the past few years, the quality has been improving. There are less thuddy, horrible cassettes being pro­duced and albums like this one prove that you can go a long way with a Yamaha keyboard but the white light of a digital CD formal is cruel at exposing the weaknesses of such recordings. Robert Alexander writes moving songs that are touching and I am convinced in a live setting, there are many who are chal­lenged and encouraged by his work. However as captured here the hurried vocals grate a little too often - whether from poor arrangement, blend or execu­tion - and the result does not help the overall "feel" of the album. This is a shame but now that Robert has taken his own 'First Steps' and placed some of his music on CD, I look forward to him doing so again but with a little more time to secure the excellence that his songs deserve. With the financial restric­tions, I know this is a luxury that is so often tantalisingly out of reach but the quality here lets the project down.

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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