True Tunes Records seems to have a gift of finding talented unknown artists that sound like someone who is immensely more popular. Byron Keith is a perfect example of this - ...Not Without a Band sounds an awful lot like a long-lost Steven Curtis Chapman album.
"She Wept" starts off the album, a tale of a woman trying to escape her past and her pain. Keith's vocals parallel Jars of Clay on "What I Need." "Yesterday, Today, Forever" describes God's love and musically combines Jars of Clay with Incubus.
"Writing Down My Thoughts" is my pick of this disc, discussing the need to retain the right words and thoughts as they happen, and not let them become only good intentions:
Writing down my thoughts so I don't/forget this revelation/tie it up so they don't slip away/how many times have I been/ in this situation/and left it in the hurry of the day.
The quest for stardom is the theme of "Seventeen":
...and did I hear you say you want to be/a superstar/ well, you'll have to dye your hair/and play guitar/it's a different scene/not like a magazine/dressing the part/you think you might go far/it's not that hard/when you're a star.
Personal frustration is shown in "Somebody Said". Keith details telling someone about God, and their refusal to commit. He then realizes that his efforts to change them are fruitless without God's involvement:
And I want to be the one/to show him/I want to be the one/how many times must I fail/before I realize/it's not up to me/to save his life.
...Not Without a Band is for those who want a less polished version of Steven Curtis Chapman, or a spiritual Marc Cohn. Another album that deserves to be heard by more people.
3.5 tocks
