Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Everyone Overcome by Desperation Band is a concert recording… well, check that. It’s a performance recording. As I am given to understand this, Desperation Band plays primarily, if not exclusively, at worship services and Christian youth worship conventions. They are well known --- and well-liked by their target audience, if Everyone Overcome is any indication, given that there is a full-throated and enthusiastic call-and-response between the band and the crowd, which seems to be instantly and totally familiar with the lyrics to all of the songs.

Desperation Band has a full, symphonic sound --- Queensryche and Dream Theater come to mind --- full of power guitar chords and synthesizers, and replete with a plethora of sing-along choruses. Everyone Overcome is well-performed and recorded as well. The tracks are uplifting and positive --- Taking Over Now, Overcome, Pleasing To You, Good To Me, Open Your Eyes --- and it’s difficult not to get swept up in the enthusiasm that one hears emanating from the speakers when listening to Everyone Overcome. And there’s really no reason not to be swept up in it. I mean, it’s not my thing --- I call myself spiritual, but not religious --- but I feel a lot more comfortable with these folks than with the secular humanist crowd.

I do have a couple of subjective beefs with Everyone Overcome. The tracks, one and all, go one for just a bit too long. This is obviously deliberate --- you want to be long and repetitive at a worship service, to get everyone involved and in touch --- but it doesn’t work on a CD that you’re playing around the house, at least if you’re not already in the choir. The other thing that lowers Everyone Overcome down a notch or two for me is its heavy --- ponderous --- reliance on 1970s rock. Again, it’s understandable; they’re trying to reach the widest possible audience here, and they’re not going to do that with hardcore Christian metal (or hardcore metal anything, for that matter).

The bottom line with Everyone Overcome is that this disc is best heard and appreciated by those already converted. Those who are will love it, and Desperation Band. Those who aren’t will find it, for whatever reason, boring. At worst, it is harmless; at best, uplifting. Give it a listen and make up your mind.