East to West is made up of Neal Coomer and Jay DeMarcus who met as a part of Lee College's traveling ensemble, New Haven. This is their debut album for the Benson label.
The album is produced by Don Koch and features a number of prominent session players, such as Jackie Street on bass and Tom Hemby on guitars. The album features a mix of pop/rock and ballads. East to West sounds very much like 4Him, with less harmonies. The instrumentation features quite a bit of funky/jazzy horn breaks, which makes East to West more jazzy in feel than 4Him. Neal and Jay share the vocals on all the tracks. Both of them sound more comfortable on the ballads.
Jay contributed in the song writing of some of the tracks on the album. The rest were written by established writers like Don Koch and Grant Cunningham. The songs on the album are either prayers to God or reminders of God's love to us. Examples would include "Word From The Wise" which asks God for wisdom like Solomon and "Fearless Heart" which asks for courage.
The occasional weak vocal on some of the rockier tracks may cause a slight loss of conviction, but overall, the album is a wonderful debut and promises of more to come.
