Metal Church-A light in the dark, 2006

This veteran band is now down to just one original member as drummer Kirk Arrington is no longer in the band. So guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof is the lone original member although he was absent from the band in the late 80's and early 90's. Now I have not heard their last album "The Weight of the world" although I have heard nothing, but positive things said about it. So this is the second album with most of this line-up of the band. The only new member is drummer Jeff Plate who has played with Savatage, TSO and Chris Caffery's solo projects. He is a very good fit for this band. I am not sure what to expect and it actually took me about four plays to really get a handle on my thoughts concerning this album. Maybe it's best to get the bad out of the way first and there are maybe three real problems. The biggest problem is that Ronny Monroe is seriously lacking any kind of vocal depth. I mean he can handle the mid-range parts, but when it gets past that he just has nothing to give. Sometimes he is just plain off as it sounds like they have written in parts that he cannot hit. This also bother me because The next complaint is that there are times when the band don't quite put enough changes in the songs to keep them going. This sometimes caused me to feel a bit bored like 3/4 through a song. The last negative is that the production is inconsistent. It's good enough at times and then muddy and hollow at others. There are too many times where a good chunk of music sounds more subdued than it should just because of the production. Okay, there are some positive points. First up is that it definitely an attempt at being a very solid metal album. It's also very apparent that Kurdt Vanderhoof and former Malice guitarist Jay Reynolds work well together and they have come up with some crunchy riffs at times. The rhythm section is also doing their job. Ultimately it's just an alright album overall. I think the solutions are that the guitarists are going to have to shoulder more of the load or they need a new singer. I don't like to be so blunt, but there were too many moments here where I was reaching for the fast forward button because of the vocals. To be fair I will eventually track down "The Weight of the world" and give it a try.