| Reviewer: colin marlow | March 26, 2003 |
| Rating: 2 |   |
| I'm crying alright, but it's not Holy |
| “Sonic Flood is Jeff Deyo, Jason Halbert, Dwayne Laring, and Aaron Blanton” (taken from the leaflet inside the self-titled album, “SonicFlood”).
Think about that for a second. Now, go check out the credits for Cry Holy (and “Resonate”, for that matter); see where I’m going with this?
I’m sure that you have heard this before in at least one (probably many more) review of SonicFlood’s “Resonate” when it was released two years ago. Well, you’re going to hear it again in this review of “Cry Holy”, because the point cannot be stressed enough that this is NOT the SonicFlood that made the stunning self-titled CD back in ’99. It really pains me to see this happen, because the SonicFlood of today is nothing like the original, in terms of both members and music, and if you ask me, it’s for the worse. If you want an idea of what SonicFlood is now, take the original band that released “SonicFlood”, wash it out, bleach it, and you’ve got the SonicFlood that’s behind the latest release, “Cry Holy”. Can you take a guess as to what I thought of the album?
Let’s start with the vocals. They’re hard to miss, as they will be the grinding, whining sound that is causing all of the glass within earshot to shatter into oblivion. Ok, so that’s a slight over exaggeration, but you see, I have this real pet peeve about nasal singers, and this singer is nasal to the point where I am certain that he is singing out of a hole that has been drilled into the highest point on his skull and then connected to his sinus cavity by some inter-cranial tunnel or synthetic tube. Not only are the vocals nasal to the point of annoyance, but they also have a very distant sound to them, almost as though the singer isn’t using his diaphragm at all but is forcing it from the throat It leaves me wishing for Jeff Deyo’s powerful voice, I’ll tell you that much.
One of the driving forces of the original band was the thundering nature of the music, with rolling base and intense electric guitars. In “Cry Holy”, you get the feeling that that’s what the new SonicFlood was aiming for with this CD, but it falls short of their intent. The electric guitar is probably the worst of it, being so far from anything close to intense that it’s laughable at best; like it’s been fed through so much post-production filtering that it’s lost all of its edge. On top of that, the entire album has an odd quality about it as it sounds like the music is being dampened through some sort of muffling device, like you’ve strapped pillows over your speakers or something. The result is a distant, far away sound that lacks any real power behind it.
One thing I will give “Cry Holy” is that its lyrics are good. They’re not great, but they’re good, and do glorify God, so at least that aspect is there.
In all fairness, I’m probably being much more harsh on this release than I should; it comes from being a huge fan of the original band. The problem is not that “Cry Holy” is particularly horrible; it’s just that it is mediocre, being neither bad nor good, and when stacked up against the original band, these new guys just don’t have what it takes to live up to the dizzying heights that were set by the first album. I’m sure that I’ll catch some serious flack from some people for a constant comparison, but as far as I’m concerned, as soon as these new guys stepped up to claim the name of SonicFlood they had an obligation to keep to the same standard set by their predecessors, and if they can’t hack it, well, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.
Here’s my advice to you; if you want another nameless and faceless Christian rock/praise album that will act as good background noise, who’s music and vocals won’t be distracting from whatever you’re doing at the time, then pick this up. If you were a fan of the original Sonic Flood and didn’t pick up “Resonate” because you were afraid it would be a disappointment (which it was), then steer clear and avoid “Cry Holy” in the same manner. If you have never heard of SonicFlood, then grab the original self-titled album and avoid any of the new stuff, because as it stands now the only thing that could vault SonicFlood back to the level it started at in ‘99 would be another member switch.
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| 69 of 140 people found the following review helpful. |
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| Reviewer: Joseph Moore | February 16, 2003 |
| Rating: 6 | |
| New Sonic Flood |
| It's not too bad, not as good as the first two and also they have lost some of the power since Jeff Dio left the band. But they are still solid and anything that will move people closer too christ or too hime for the first time is always good!
MoJoe <>< |
| 64 of 143 people found the following review helpful. |
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