Don't judge this album by the band's debut effort. "The Bottom Line" completely blows the other one out of the water. The differences are not only found in the quality of songs, but with the good guitar tones and great vocal lines. "Shame" features a sizable wall of sound. It's got a really cool guitar sound in it. "Rock In A Hard Place" starts off with some excellent classical guitar picking and, once the song gets going, it falls into hints of anthemic vocals, and then a nice guitar solo interrupts things with a breakdown with the acoustic again. The message is simple: "You've got to be a rock in a hard place/ there's so little time, so let's get in their face." "No Boundaries", a pretty ballad in the vein of "Come Home", tells the tale of a broken man before the Lord, while proclaiming that "there is a love that knows no boundaries." Adam Kemp's voice sounds good at tender times like these, and he even gets some subtle help here from Guardian's Jamie Rowe for background harmonies. "Cry Out" starts off with some sound effects of Adam rambling some street jive, "So there I was, minding my own business!" and the band jumps into a driving tune with loud, thumpin' bass and crashing drums. "The Big Picture" is a straight-ahead rocker that finds Adam singing in a somewhat high register than would sound best. I would've had him dig lower for a more powerful vocal sound on this one, but hey! I'm not the producer. The three best songs are "Paradise", "Rise Up" and "Snakes In The Grass" (which is heavy enough to never be confused with Kim Hill's song of the same title). When I first heard the beginning of "Paradise", all I could say was, "Wow!" Adam's voice booms with smoothness and a nice keyboard builds underneath. You think it's gonna be a ballad, and then the band rips into a speeding freight train of a beat (nice drums!) and rumbles down the line. It's a wild contrast, but sounds hot. The band shows its hard rockin' clout in this section of the song. Adam wails a lot in "Rise Up" as well. "Stick To Your Guns" is another rocker with a prominent bass line and an encouraging message to send demons back to where they came from. Crystavox proves with this album that it's not just a good live band, but can hold its own in the studio as well.