Gold City

Item: Home For The Holidays
Author: David Murray

Home For The Holidays

(1997)

Reviewed by David Murray

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Label DaywindThe LighthouseDecember 1997

gospel southern gospel worship

Southern Gospel style male quartet music has been around for a long time. Although many groups have brought great excitement to their live stage shows, only a few groups like the Kingdom Heirs and the Cathedrals have consistently produced top quality recordings. (Admittedly, production quality has always been of utmost importance to The Gaither Vocal Band, but their style mixes Southern Gospel with pop and country.) Gold City typically stays firmly in the Southern Gospel camp. They've re-defined the genre to a great extent by popularizing inspirational tunes like "Midnight Cry" and "Show Me The Cross;" and they revived an interest in Southern Gospel á capella singing a few years ago with their landmark album, Acapella Gold.

With Home For The Holidays Gold City explores several traditional Christmas songs and carols. Most of the arrangements feature straightforward full harmony without an abundance of solos. "White Christmas" in particular has a rich vocal blend. The solos that are present are restrained with subtle embellishments. Traditional carols like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" are given the spotlight on four cuts, two of which are multi-tune medleys. The rollicking "Christmas Times A Comin'" adds a fun element to the disc. The "least likely to be sung by a Southern Gospel quartet" award goes to "Carol Of The Bells." Bass singer Tim Riley has added a few rumbling low notes to this otherwise standard treatment.

One downside to this project is its brevity. Though it contains 12 songs, some of them are combined into medleys, yielding only nine tracks clocking in under 30 minutes. Perhaps there was pressure to rush a new recording to press, since Gold City just announced signing a new recording contract with Daywind, leaving their home of over a decade at Riversong. At any rate, Home For The Holidays is very good quality, but you may want to try to find it at an after Christmas sale if length is an issue.