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Many who have heard of Teen Mania Ministries and their Acquire the Fire circuit are already familiar with the
worship rockers Unhindered. As a partner with the organization for years, the band is finally releasing
their own record as a signed band to Ee-Taow Records, a label created specifically for the band (and any future signees, as
well). Unfortunately, Unhindered's debut has much that, well, hinders it.
The main problem with this album is that there is nothing about it that really takes off to be anything more than a
standard worship experience. To be fair, however, Unhindered integrates an unashamed rock 'n' roll sound to try to make
their effort more unique, but instead there's ultimately nothing that sets them apart from a typical youth group band.
There are absolutely no surprises to be found here, and every track is just as predictable in its compostitions as the next.
The opening track (and first single) "You Are My Creator" isn't necessarily a bad track, but there's nothing even remotely
unique about it. Being this is the first track, which usually tries to grab the attention from the listener early on,
it gravely fails at this, and the rest of the album fares no better. "We Will" has a catchy guitar intro as well as good
incorporation of keyboards, but the commonplace lyrics are the downfall of the song. When Unhindered slows down a bit for
some tracks like "Father Will You Come" and "Who Is Like The Lord," it's never a good reflective song like it should be,
but instead, the listener will be wondering, "When is the song going to finally wrap up?". Lyrically, most of the worship
"catchphrases" are used extensively ("You are always with me," "My heart cries out to You,"
"There's no other name worthy of praise," etc.), and this just makes the whole album seem even more ordinary than
it should have been.
It's pretty easy to say that Be is anything but a fresh effort. One could do much, much better in the
worship genre, and Unhindered offers very little to the table to make themselves distinctive or garner any special
attention. It's records like these that are quite disappointing to see released from a signed band, especially considering
how much experience Unhindered has attained. One would be wise to pass this album up and seek one of the better worship
albums from this year instead.
- Review date: 10/18/09, written by Roger Gelwicks of Jesusfreakhideout.com
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Gaining some popularity by playing many Acquire The Fire events, pop rock worship act
Unhindered is the first signee of ATF's Ee-Taow Records. From the one time I heard them play at ATF, I remember
Unhindered being a little more poppy, but their debut Be seems to show a little maturity. There's a lot on
the album that fits the mold of most worship music these days, like the declaration beginning of the anthemic
"Who Is Like The Lord," and the MercyMe-esque "Beautiful" that I could definitely see being played by youth worship
bands across the country. Toward the beginning, there's a hint of trying to break it. "We Will" has a vocal pattern
that could almost pass as an '80s style vocal pattern, and "People of God" reminds me of a mixture of The Wedding
and Kids in the Way with a dash of Panic At The Disco in the vocals. It flows into "Light This World" which takes a
paragraph of a page from Stellar Kart. Lyrically, the project is decent. It's 100% focused on Jesus, which is
definitely a good thing, but some of it is generic stuff heard from many other worship songs already. However, the
album doesn't suffer from this all the time, and when mixed with the better-than-most music, Be seems
promising for Unhindered.
- Scott Fryberger
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Record Label: Ee-Taow Records
