Reviewed by Paul S Ganney

When a record company, in this case BEC Recordings, offer a free sampler it would be churlish to be too critical. And in fact there's plenty of strong pop and rock on offer here. Kicking off with the very summery "Beautiful Life" by Among The Thirsty and David Dunn's Take That-esque "Have Everything" the tone is set: it's got a lot of modern boy-band feel to it with every chorus fixing itself into your head (you could image 5SOS, 1D or Little Mix doing most of these, with Take That or Robbie Williams picking off the rest). Exceptions are Citizens And Saints who are more '80s electronica, Kutless who are more '00s rock and Aaron Gillespie who is more praise and worship - all stand well in the album, though and there isn't a duff track on it. Lyrically the sampler covers a lot of ground (as you'd expect) but is firmly in the faith camp. The sampler is free to download, but they are encouraging charitable giving to CURE in response - it's well worth doing both. Best track (it's almost unfair doing this with so many great artists on show): "Diamonds (ftg Trevor from TFK)" by Manafest.

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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