Casting Crowns
The Altar and the Door

By Dan H.

Beach Street/Reunion Records
Comes out August 28, 2007
Style: Soft rock/pop
http://www.castingcrowns.com

Rating: 2/5


Georgia-based soft rock band Casting Crowns got their start playing in a youth group before they were discovered by Christian music legend Steven Curtis Chapman, and vaulted to fame with the 2003 hit "If We Are the Body". Frontman Mark Hall calls the band's work a ministry that the world would call "preaching to the choir."

The electronic beginning of the introduction "What the World Needs" sounds like the intro to a dc Talk song, and dc Talk is a fairly good comparison of this song's sound, minus the rapping. However, things slow down a lot after this. "Every Man", honestly, is a country song. The honky-tonk keyboards, drawl to the vocals, lyrical style, and slow ballad give it away. I'm not a country fan at all, but the song really is pretty. The song is somewhat dramatic, but hopeful - the line "There is hope for every man" is repeated, and then the band adds "Jesus is hope for everyman".  "Slow Fade", which deals with the idea of lust in a very non-explicit way. The country influences are still there, but it's more of a piano-rock song, kind of like a song by The Fray. Songs like "The World is Alive" are so slow, that I find it hard to see how this band's sound is labeled as "rock". The song lifts another dc Talk influence with a short bridge consisting of an audio clip defending the truth of the Bible (in this case, from the song "Mind's Eye".) It doesn't quite seem to fit as well in this case, but it still works. The song adds some female vocals toward the end, and they become increasingly more present toward the end of the album, as do the slower tempoes. The album ends with an bluesy praise song, "All Because of Jesus", followed by several minutes of silence, and a hidden track that is acoustic guitar plus a duet between Casting Crowns's two vocalists. It is out of place, and nevertheless very pretty.

Honestly, I thought this album was very boring, and it might make a good gift for a relative or devotional music, but Casting Crowns is far too dull, mellow, and country-influenced for my tastes. The lyrics are very Christ-centered, which is why I give it two stars out of five, but unless soft country-influenced rock is your thing, I would not recommend this album.