Published on Mar 1, 2002
Plus One, the Contemporary Christian music world’s answer to
Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, apparently titled their sophomore
effort
Obvious as a challenge to believers – namely, to make their
beliefs obvious in their daily lives. After all, aren’t the band’s
beliefs obvious on this disc?
Uh, no… and thank God for that. I loathe listening to CCM
which takes the message and beats me over the head with it, warning
me I’m going to hell if I’m not born again. (To quote Dennis Miller
– and, by the way, props to him for a great two years on “Monday
Night Football” – pardon me for getting it right the first time.)
PlusOne doesn’t do this on
Obvious, instead delivering their message more coyly,
wrapped up in a harder edge to the music and lyrics which often
allow the listener toderive their own manings.
Yet
Obvious shows the frailties that almost every boy-band faces
at some point in their careers – namely, fighting to stay sounding
fresh in a market which is already supersaturated. Backstreet Boys
have fought with this. *NSYNC has fought with this. New Kids fought
with this, and lost. Now, it’s Plus One’s turn – and while the
album is pleasing in general, I almost wish they had gone a little
more in the direction of clarity.
I admit I’m at a disadvantage, since I’m working off an advance
release copy of this disc, and I have no liner notes or lyric
sheets. But there are times I do wish I had a clearer picture of
what the group – Gabe Combs, Nathan Walters, Nate Cole, Jeremy
Mhire and Jason Perry – were singing about, since their vocals are
often partially obscured by the music. It’s not a weakness that
terribly dilutes the enjoyment and the power of songs like
“Camouflage,” “Kick Me” and “Calling Down An Angel,” but it does
seem like their message isn’t always getting out there like the
band might have hoped it would.
And while
Obvious is an enjoyable album right off the bat, I still am
not totally convinced that Plus One is ready to go after the
present 800-pound gorillas of the teeny-bop market. This has
nothing to do with their CCM style of music – as mentioned before,
there’s enough leeway on many of these songs where the listener
could even take a non-religious view of the music and find it
enlightening – but more that they’re still working out just what
kind of a band they want to be musically. These are, after all,
young men who are coming into their own on many facets of the
musical spectrum, with band members sharing in writing (and, on two
tracks, some fo mof production) chores. The chances are good that
Plus One does have what it takes to be considered a big name in the
boy-band field; they’re still working towards that goal,
however.
Obvious is not the definitive statement from Plus One;
rather, it’s a portrait of the group on their own journey. It’s a
step up from their previous effort, and has enough charisma to be
embraced even by those who do not like Contemporary Christian
music. With a little more polish and more maturity as songwriters
and producers (something I don’t mean as an insult), they could be
larger than their own genre.