When Pure Heart's trailer was stolen 10 years ago, the group pressed on and ministered their services that weekend without the backing of tracks or a sound system. That moment changed the group and gave them an affinity for a cappella music. The group has since included a cappella music in their program ever since, and at the request of their fans, the group has released a record of all a cappella arrangements.
Full albums of a cappella songs and arrangements are tough even for the biggest and most talented artists. Even artists like The Martins, LordSong, and the Gaither Vocal Band who have released a cappella albums have had to think outside of the box and get creative in order to keep the listener engaged for an entire album of a cappella songs. These are tough albums to make - and even the big dogs falter with them.
Pure Heart's A'cappella At Your Request has multiple problems from the very beginning. From the opening chord of "My Lord and I" - the listener notices immediate pitch and blending problems. This isn't evident just in this song - but every song on the album is plagued with these problems. In fact, the stacks on "Dig a Little Deeper In God's Love" rub one another because those pitches are so off of one another.
"The Blood" features multiple doubling of parts, while "No Not One"'s upper soprano harmony is especially pitchy.
In addition, the group's arrangements lack a real spark of creativity, as the group borrows a lot of their arrangements from other groups. With an album that features 14 songs - the group really needed to think outside of the box here and find songs that weren't known for a cappella arrangements and didn't already have another group's trademark stamped all over it.
Overall, there's good reasons why an artist will bulk up their tracks a bit more because they help hide many of their blemishes that an all a cappella album will not do. A'cappella At Your Request is unfortunately an album that Pure Heart was not ready to make.
Author: Chris D. Unthank
| Author's Website: http://southernspin.com
Written: 11/01/2009
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Category: Reviews
Comments: 2
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Chris, I don't know these folks, but I hope that they are not offended by this review. I am sure that you wanted this project to be "all it could be", but..... some days just ain't your day.....
First off I want to say that I do not know, nor have I heard PureHeart, so this post is not about them specifically. Chris you are right on to critique this album in the way you did. Pitch, tone and blending problems are not a matter of opinion they are fact. So many times SG artists fail or just flat out refuse to see their own limitations. Quoting the previous poster "some days just ain't your day" while that may be true, I dare to say most SG singers who put out projects with these kinds of problems can't tell the difference between flat sharp or dead on. I just wish all SG groups whether fulltime, part-time, professional or amateur would begin to realize what they can and cannot do and stick to what works best for them.
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