Meadow Hill

Review: HYMNS

HYMNS
Arranged, performed, and produced by Page CXVI
Additional Production by Robbie Seay
Engineered, Mixed, and Mastered by Chris Coleman
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Rarely do I get worked up about songs I listened to when I was young. This is one of those times. The intent of this album was to make some of the old anthems from the 1800s and 1900s relevant to people who may not have even lived in the 1900s.

Other bands have tried this tact. To produce an album with a modern slant on old songs. Frankly, I’ve always seen the efforts as money grabs, quite frankly. This recording doesn’t seem that way, and that’s what draws me. The song’s style does as well, but that’s just me.

Critique

Music is so amazingly difficult to quantify. If you like alternative music, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. That’s how these songs are arranged, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, then this album isn’t for you. So for people who actually like that sort of thing, there’s a lot to like about this project.

First of all, the songs are treated as well as one could while remaining true to the intention of the songs. They didn’t chop them into shorter, praise & worship–type phrases. For the most part, you get verse/chorus/verse/chorus just as you would expect. You will get what you expect from the original songs, while they have a particularly modern sound.

The mixing leaves nothing to be desired. It is as well–produced as anything you would expect to hear on the radio. I’m not sure any of these songs will ever get airplay because of the people who will balk at the change in style with the songs. But if they do get played, I would only hope that other artists get the bright idea that some Wesleyan hymns can really fill out a record.

Simple Conclusion

I really like this album. I got an advanced copy of the songs, and I really liked it on first listen. The goal of the project was to make the songs accessible to a new generation of people, and I think they succeeded.

They made a guy who isn’t so new like it, too. Buy it.

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