Hello everyone and welcome to Off-beat news.
This week I will be reviewing the latest from Christian recording artist tobyMac.
His latest is CD is titled Portable Sounds, and is appropriate, as the songs make you want to carry the music around with you at all times.
Right off the bat we are treated to a familiar toby sound in "One World". Part "Hey Now" from the Diverse City record with some new elements incorporated, this track is a great way to start the CD. Immnediately following is the made-for-radio hit-"Made to Love". While obvioulsy t-mac, it still indicates a slightly more pop sound that he has been going lately. Other tracks on the CD with more of a vocal style include "I'm For You" (which is amazing), and "All In". "Boomin", "No Ordinairy Love", and "Feelin' So Fly" go back to the hip-hop that defines Toby's roots while "Ignition" and "Suddenly" sound like alternative rock songs. (Think "Supernatural" era dctalk). A calypso sounding "No Signal" and the powerful and soulful "Lose My Soul" (Featuring Kirk Franklin and Mandisa, of American Idol fame), end the record- automatically making you skip back to the first track to hear it all again.
My two cents:
I think that Toby has once again struck gold. No, he doesn't do anything particularly Grammy worthy here, but he shows his song writing and producing skills by the clever orchestrations and effects featured on this CD. Even though we have more sung songs, rather than the spoken-rapped sound featured in his previous works, the beats and instruments more than make you forget about it- it makes you not care about it. This CD is a new direction for tobyMac, and is frankly a direction that we will be seeing more of. Final word-Go buy it, now.
I give this CD 5 out of 5 stars.
