Label: Cedar Hill
Producer: Eddie Crook
Website: [url=http://www.1hopeministries.com]http://www.1hopeministries.com [/url]
Song Titles: "Jesus Is Coming Soon," "Crucified With Christ," "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning," "We're Gonna Rise Up," "Your Grace Still Amazes Me," "Up And Gone," "You Are My King," "My Name Is Lazarus," "Glory Road," and "Draw Me Close"
Before I listen to Up And Gone by the group One Hope, I notice that most of their songs are cover tunes. I also note the vast range in style this group is attempting . . . songs popularized by Phillips Craig and Dean, the Gaither Vocal Band, Greater Vision and the Kingsmen. I wonder if they make each arrangement their own or just copy the more popular arrangements. Well . . . let's push [PLAY] and see . . .
One Hope gets off to a positive start with "Jesus Is Coming Soon." It begins slowly . . . more like a choral arrangement at first . . . then it kicks into a more traditional upbeat arrangement. This group has a good vocal blend and each voice gets to be heard on this tune. "Crucified With Christ" follows with a vocal arrangement more or less just like the original, but the instrumentation with steel guitar makes it sound right at home following "Jesus Is Coming Soon." So far so good. Then the wheels come off with "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning." A cappella singing reveals a noticeable lack of vocal support in a few spots. Fortunately, One Hope gets back on track with "We're Gonna Rise Up," a nice mid-tempo number. "Your Grace Still Amazes Me" is a fantastic song written by Shawn Craig, and I particularly like the instrumentation with the mandolin that helped to make this tune fit stylistically with the rest of this CD. "You Are My King" gets a similar treatment with guitar. They take another a cappella turn with "Glory Road," which again, is not their finest moment on the recording, but it's an improvement over "In That Great Gettin' Up Morning."
This CD is a mixed bag in several respects. One Hope does a great job blending with each other and singing rhythms in sync, but they need to do more to sell solos and other moments when a single voice is exposed briefly. For the most part, there is a unique flavor on the cover songs, which is great, but that comes more from the instruments used than their vocal arrangements. I like the idea of combining worship songs like "You Are My King" and "Draw Me Close" with classics like "Jesus Is Coming Soon" and lesser known tunes like "Up And Gone" . . . then tying them together in terms of style. The two a cappella tunes interrupt that continuity . . . not so much because the style changes . . . more because this group just sounds better with instruments.
My overall opinion is that this CD is good, but it could be better in a few areas.
Author: David Bruce Murray
| Author's Website: http://www.musicscribe.com
Written: 04/30/2004
| 
Category: CD Reviews
Comments: 3
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Mr. Murray: I sing barritone for OneHope and stumbled across your review yesterday. First of all let me thank you for your review and your comments, by the way how did you come to review our project? Your comments are appreciated and we would agree with most of them. This was our first "attempt" at recording and we really learned a lot, we are almost finished with our 2nd project and we are still learning, (no A capella numbers on this project). I'm sure when it's complete there will again be many area's that we can improve on. After first hearing yourself on a project you think that's pretty cool and think it sounds good, but the more you listen to it and critique yourself the more things you would change, or not attempt. The amazing thing is that God can still use it to minister to people. We did not start singing together to "Make it Big". We all have gone to church together for almost 10 years and we sang one song together and people really liked it (or said they did) and it has gone from there. God has really blessed us and continued to use us in spite of our abilities, or lack of them. Once our next project is completed how can we get it to you for another review?
Geoff,
Deon Unthank sent me a box of about 25 CDs that had been turned in to him for reviews a few months ago. (He gets so many, it's impossible for him to review all of them himself, so the rest of the staff picks up some along the way.) Your CD was in that box. I assume someone from your group must have given it to him in the last year or two. I may be mistaken, but I believe many of those CDs came from groups that dropped them off for review at the Sogospelnews NQC booth.
I look forward to hearing your new CD. I've emailed my mailing address to you.
David Bruce Murray / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
--- Making hay while the sun shines ---
“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”—-Mark Twain
Mr. Murray: We finally completed our latest CD project "Reflections". I missplaced your mailing address so I mailed it to the So Gospel News address a few weeks ago. If it will get to you quicker I will be happy to mail one to you directly. Thanks in advance for you review of our project.
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