One Man In The Middle brings you regular, unbiased and honest reviews of music EPs and albums from Christian artists and musicians, of all styles and abilities, from all over the world. Here we have “99.4.1 (Reckless Love)” by Christafari with an overall review score of 8.1 out of 10.
Album Information:
Christian reggae musicianaries Christafari don’t let up or slow down, this is their second album of 2018 and it’s even got a message in it’s title.
REVIEW:
Christian musicianary Reggae band Christafari are probably one of the hardest working bands in Christian music with leader Pastor Mark Mohr and his wife Avion helming the band since 1989 which makes them 30 years old this year. Over the years the line-up has changed, but Mark has been the constant in the band. Varying their music between their own compositions and reggae-style covers of popular worship songs this band combines both on their latest album 99.4.1 which was released at the back-end of 2018.
The album opens with “Upside Down (City On A Hilltop)”, an original track which deals the world being all flipped up. Talking about abandoned relationships, anti-social media and the use and abuse of the current sexual trends, in amongst all of this God is constant and trustworthy. In this confusing and confused world we have to step out and shine the light of the truth of God’s love. Part of this they link with their next track “Freedom Fighters” and this is a passionate track that begins with an intro and then the words that Jesus spoke to astound the crowd at the synagogue from Isaiah 61 forms the first verse. This is about declaring freedom and uses emotive quotes from famous evangelists and endeavours to stir us up to take the Gospel out into the world. This theme continues into the third track too. Over the years Christafari have dabbled with fire as part of their songs with “Soulfire”, “Hearts of Fire”, “Blood and Fire”, but now they have just settled on “Fire!”. This is all about being on fire for God and taking the Gospel out which is like holy fire.
One thing that Christafari have consistently done through the years is to take modern worship songs and given them a Reggae make-over. This can breathe new life into something that has often become quite familiar, pairing the different style with Avion Blackman’s voice is always a sure winner and that is the case for “Reckless Love”. This track is the only worship cover on this release. The title track is up next, “99 for 1” which is loosely based on the story of the lost sheep leaving the 99 to pursue the lost one.
“Two Harbors” is a tale of what happens when disaster hits your life, which it does for so many of us. In one harbor the boat is safe and secure in the storm, in the other the storm crushes the boat. The thing is you have to choose your harbor before the storm arrives. So it’s all about choosing the safety of God in life, because He doesn’t promise you the storm won’t come, but He will see you through it safely.
“Christafari (99.4.1)” seems to be a bit of a mission statement for the band, it’s not really changed much over the year – they are here to preach the Gospel unashamed to a lost world. The very last track on the album is called “Reckless Dub” which is a remix of bits of the chorus of the “Reckless Love” from earlier in the album.
This is another great album with a lot to say about taking the Gospel out to a needy and hurting world. Musically though I would say that Christafari definitely have their main sound and this is not a big change to anything that has gone before. If you like their previous stuff then you will like this. I do think that it would be worth them changing things up a bit and exploring other aspects of Reggae that don’t seem to come through as much on this album.
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