We’ve teamed up with our friends over at One Man In The Middle to bring you regular, unbiased and honest reviews of music albums aimed at the Christian marketplace. This week we have Deeper from Meredith Andrews with an overall review score of 5.7 out of 10.
Album Information:
Word Worship artist Meredith Andrews has released her new album, Deeper, available now. This multi-Dove Award winning artist releases her fourth album as she continues to utilize her musical artistry to share about God’s never-ending love for each of us.
With marriage at the heart of this new album, Andrews kicked off her album release by sharing her heart and performing some of the songs from Deeper at a marriage encouragement banquet for WCIC listeners in Peoria, IL with 300 people in attendance. Andrews wrote and recorded this album in the midst of a season of brokenness around her sixth year of marriage with her husband Jacob. Overcoming this season and on a welcomed path towards healing, Andrews worked together on this album with her husband as he co-produced the project.
Review:
It has been 3 years since Meredith Andrews last full album release “Worth It All” and that is a long time for an artist on a big label to not have an album, especially when that one received so many accolades including many positive reviews and Dove awards. Just because she hasn’t released an album doesn’t mean she hasn’t been busy writing and recording though and we have seen Meredith appear on other albums such as “Vertical Worship” and Charles Billingsley’s latest album, “Right Here” which we reviewed recently.
The reason for such a long break between studio albums is that Meredith has been on a learning curve through some difficulties in her marriage and having 2 children since the last release. Meredith has been quite open discussing the issue of her marital problems and clearly it has provided a fair amount of material for this new album as she has come to the place where she knows that God is faithful.
“Soar” was the first single that Meredith released from this album, a come-back, up beat anthem that uses the Biblical image of rising up on wings like eagles. I love this imagery and this song rated very well as a single. Unfortunately to me, as part of the overall album this song did not stand out as anything special. Possibly because this is an album that is full of ballads, there are not many tracks here that lift pace and tone to change things around. Like some of the other albums I have listened too recently it is placed in the middle of the road territory.
The other thing is that those places that Meredith has been in her personal troubles that have led to inspiration have also led to the same images that other artists have been using since the Psalms and Isaiah were written. Soaring on eagles wings, standing in the valley, seeing the King on the battlefield – these are all powerful and uplifting images. However they have been very overused by CCM writers and Worship leaders particularly. Sadly the tracks on this album give more of the same imagery with no extra insights.
This is not to say that these tracks don’t have any redeeming features, of course they do – and one the best redeeming features is Meredith’s vocal which are a pleasure on every track. There are some excellent songs that do stand out. One that grabbed me was the worship song “Spirit Of The Living God” which stopped me in my tracks when I was out walking to just stop and engage more with the song in worship.
As this is the deluxe version of the album there are some extra tracks and one of these is an excellent version of “Christ Is Enough” from Hillsong. This version is very well put together and has a slightly lower pitch than many versions of this track which makes it easy to sing along to.
There will be no argument that Meredith Andrews is an exceptional singer. She also seems to be a talented worship leader and the more worshipful tracks you can really soak in them, especially “Spirit of the Living God”. However from a production standpoint this album needed to change sound and tempo occasionally, what we have been left with is, sadly, not living up to what was expected. Perhaps in isolation each track in radio air play then the tracks would have more impact, but sadly the impact is lost due to their similarity.
For track listing, ranking breakdown and more check out onemaninthemiddle.com
