Up And Gone
One Hope
Label: Cedar Hill
Producer: Eddie Crook
Website: www.1hopeministries.com
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.
Rating: 3 Stars--- David Bruce Murray