St. Louis Family Church

St. Louis Family Church is the latest in a long line of mega-congregations to release a live recording of their worship services. With female lead vocals and a gently distorted electric guitar back up, this church’s band is obviously passionate about what they do, even if their charisma gets partially lost in a flurry of musical déjà vu and eye-rolling lyricism.

My Whole World brings nothing new to the table—it is yet another live worship album a la Hillsong United or Gateway Church. And, much like its forerunners, it utilizes post-punk clichés most commonly affiliated with U2 or Coldplay as a soundtrack to blatantly predictable lyrics most probably intended to wash over the listener with little thought. After all, these worship albums are custom-made for public unity, not to convey profound bits of biblical insight or new approaches to well-worn doctrine. It isn’t exactly a bad thing, but once again, if you aren’t a music minister looking for new material to incorporate into your services, then you’re probably not going to find much to love here unless you’ve been living under a rock the past five years and are unfamiliar with the whole praise and worship movement.

I’m familiar with the idea that the industry, eager to please we hungry consumers, will often resort to overkill in order to fill a hole made by our demands. As a result, we eventually get sick of the trend we were so enthusiastic about not so long ago. This response doesn’t necessarily mean that later artists who are not fortunate enough to buck the trend aren’t as talented at what they do; it does, however, mean that we’re numb to whatever sway they might’ve held over us at an earlier date. Such is the case with this project; it’s more than an effective brit-worship album. Unfortunately, I feel it has come along too late in the game to make much of an impact.

It isn’t that the britpop sound has nothing left to offer the market. Recently successful worship releases such as Telecast’s Quiet Revolution (which sports a curious blend of folk and 80s synths) and Leeland’s Opposite Way (an admittedly paint-by-numbers pop album that survives on the strength of its melodies alone) prove that it doesn’t take further artistic experimentation to make a fun album. It does, however, take some strong hooks and at least moderately unpredictable lyrics. Without these, My Whole World comes across just a little bit boring; it isn’t terrible, isn’t excellent—just mediocre. Again, it’s too little too late. There’s not much here to grab a hold of.

I hope that this church manages to record another effort, though, if only because it would be a pleasant surprise to find that they’ve learned from their weak points and built on their sound. There’s always hope.

↓ 2 comments

#1 Ken on June 15th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

We do some worship music but we do songs to bring the gospel outside the church. Check out our outreach band: Sound Doctrine Band. We also have a my space: myspace.com/sounddoctrineband
We still havn’t made our CD yet but will be working on it.

Ken

#2 Ken on June 15th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Thanks

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