This past year has seen quite a push from Christian labels into the Dance/House/Techno/Rave marketplace. These two new albums continue to push the limits of Christian music.
Scott Blackwell, former New York mastermixer, has put his skills to what I would argue is his best work to date. He has taken a slight step backward and produced an overview of the club music sound of today. The cover shows the various genres shown on the album: Rare Groove, House, Techno, Jack Swing, and others.
The music on Blackwell's project is as excellent as always, but where I feel he has made a quantum leap is in the lyrics. Here, he has gone way past social commentary ("Love is Not a 4 Letter Word") into praise ("Never Ending Love") and hard-hitting Christian messages ("You Must Surrender," "All You Madonnas," "Once Upon a Time," and "Never Too Late"). The message is straight-up, no-compromise from keeping love pure to finding happiness and satisfaction in Christ to surrendering one's life to Christ. This might be a bit too bold for many non-Christians, but I think it's about time that there's some music of this type with strong Christian lyrics.
Blackwell also lightens up the album with some excellent instrumental tracks ("XYZ" is an excellent Rave track) for dancing in celebration. He packs around 64 minutes into this very satisfying project.
Zero's debut release is billed as funk-industrial-tekno-rave-hiphop-soul-R&B-club-dance noise-they also deliver. This is some of the most energetic music in these genres. It's fast paced, filled with samples and very danceable. All the songs top the 124 beats per minute (BPM) scale. Musically, this is probably the best Christian release in the rave-tekno type genre to date.
Unfortunately, lyrically it disappointed me. It carries a positive message, but I could only find one slight and very subtle mention of Christ. The first page of the CD jacket states, "Zero believes in analog, fat bass, funky loops, tweaked hihats, 808 kicks, 909 snares, a sense of humor and a personal relationship with God." Well, I think it's a shame that this is where the mention of God essentially ends. While the message is encouraging and positive, it certainly isn't centering around Christ. I enjoy the music on this album, but I had hoped for a strong Christian message to match the quality of the music.
While Blackwell heads more in the swing/R&B area with slower grooves and strong Christian messages, Zero takes the rave-tekno approach with louder, more energetic tunes without any clear mention of Christ. I loved them both, but would have liked some kind of message from Zero, but I can't really complain-both pack great club music.
