Louder Than The Music

Sometimes I really hate this job. You listen to new music knowing that nine out of ten times, the artist has poured their heart into it and risked a lot to get to this point. And when you listen to find you aren’t really keen on what you hear, it’s not a pleasant feeling at all.

This is Tristen Roberts’ fourth release and, let me just point out that I don’t hate it. This is Church music: unadulterated, unashamedly Church music. Not a bad thing in itself: but it doesn’t seem to make the transition onto recording as well as it could.

Each of the five tracks on this EP are good tracks, recorded simply, with pleasant melodies and with simple, beautiful truths in the lyrics. My issue is that, you look at Vicky Beeching’s latest release and you see great Church music that has been produced to a standard that allows it to be played outside of the Church setting with ease.

There are some interesting guitar moments where Tristen seems to have been influenced largely by Delirious’ early material. The chaotic guitars mixed with the pleasant vocals makes for an easy listen but there is a strange sense that the recordings were done live but without that real live feel. There’s a somewhat unproduced feeling to it which sadly means it just wouldn’t be able to cut it with the great Church music that is out there.

One really nice moment appears in Our Saving Grace when some nice atmosphere and harmonies are broken and replaced by Amazing Grace. A really unexpected and creative use of a classic song.

With a bigger budget and some better production, this could be a great EP and I have seen artists make that transition before, so I hope that it will be in Tristen’s future.

Review by Suzanne Physick

LTTM Rating 2 out of 5 Stars

Stand Out Track
Our Saving Grace