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No Turning Back

CD and tape review

No Turning Back
Out of Eden
Alliance Music (available from Christian bookshops)
£14.99 (CD) £9.99 (cassette)

With the current chart domination of female R&B acts, I felt it was high time I reviewed something similar by a Christian artist. So, armed with a CD remote control, a comfy armchair and a knowledgeable little sister (thanks Naomi!), here we go . . .

From the explosive opener 'Lookin' For Love' to the beautifully mellow 'Draw You Near', Out of Eden show that they can really sing. Tight harmonies are, of course, one of the trademarks of this type of music and Out of Eden certainly do not disappoint. With several guest vocalists, bits of rapping and scratching here and there, and enough going on in the background to keep the listener interested, No Turning Back is a very well produced album.

If you heard them on the radio, you might mistake Out of Eden for any one of the current plethora of chart acts; TLC, Eternal and the Honeyz to name but three. If you saw them in a magazine, you might mistake them again; they're young, black and female. (The only give-away might be the more respectable quantity of clothing they wear when compared with the norm for the genre!)

This is one album which really grows on you, and soon after the songs start spinning around in your head (most of them are really catchy), you start to notice the superb lyrics. Their Christian faith clearly shows through all the songs on the album. 'River', for example, is a simple expression of thanks to God for his faithfulness through hard times. Much of the album specifically addresses the issues which young people face today. In fact, one of the aims of the band is to give a Christian response to the slow dance, bump-and-grind songs so prevalent in the R&B scene. One of the best examples is 'Open Your Heart': 'You turn here and there for the things to make you happy / You're on a high but then you crash when those things tear you apart / I've seen you struggle, I've seen you crying / Saw you do those things you swore you'd never do / Your guilty soul has got you slowly dying / Come out of the darkness into the light so you can see / I died for you, you must believe and open up your heart.'

So, will you like it? If you like R&B, then I think so - while not particularly groundbreaking musically, Out of Eden competes very well with anything you might hear on the radio. Musically and lyrically, it's quite 'grown-up' and probably aimed at mid-teens and above. At the least, this album will provide a very worthy alternative to certain secular artists and the blatantly immoral messages they sometimes propagate. And, you never know, you might just find your faith challenged and deepened too!

Jon Mason