Jeff Deyo

Item: Saturate
Author: Bert Gangl

Saturate

(2002)

Reviewed by Bert Gangl

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Label Gotee RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2002

ccm modern rock pop rock worship

A singer's decision to step away from the front position of a successful recording outfit can be a daunting one, particularly in light of results that can fall at any point between magnificent and disastrous. While artists as varied as Ozzy Osbourne and Diana Ross have been able to translate their group-related successes into more or less equal quantities as individual performers, others like Rod Stewart and Michael Jackson have virtually eclipsed their earlier work with their solo projects. On the other hand, it's probably safe to say that the recording industry possesses no shortage of artists, from David Lee Roth on down, who have more than once lamented their decisions to part company with their former bandmembers.

Given that the self-titled first release, together with its live follow-up, Sonicpraise, netted the Sonicflood collective a gold album certification, a Grammy nomination and largely enthusiastic cache of reviews, it is perhaps not surprising that former SF front man Jeff Deyo and his newly assembled quartet of musicians adhere fairly closely to the underlying temperament of those two efforts for his first solo project, Saturate. Entries like "I Give You My Heart" and "Lose Myself" mirror the characteristically lively pop/rock-tinged modern worship of the lion's share of the Sonicflood catalog, while Deyo's stirring take on the classic praise anthem "More Love More Power" tweaks the well-proven mixture with nicely-placed elements of hip-hop and reggae. Perhaps most importantly, the catchy, riff-driven "Let It Flow" stations itself as logical successor to the infectious break-out hit "I Want to Know You" from the Sonicflood debut.

While Saturate's opening block of songs is impressive enough, much of its remaining running time bows under the weight of material that is, for the most part, rather nondescript. While "All I Want" features a moderately memorable vocal hook and "Let Me Burn" displays a reasonably engaging anthemic quality, these entries, and the others clustered around them, effectively bring the album to a standstill by its second half due to their mostly undistinguished character. In spite of its weak middle portion, though, the final segment of Saturate redeems the proceedings with a best-of-album three-song suite. The magnificently poignant "You Are Good" is sectioned between beautifully sublime orchestral preludes and postludes that function as the ideal frame for the song's meditative beginning and end segments and perfectly complement its sweeping middle crescendo.

While Saturate stands as slightly less uniform than either Sonicflood or Sonicpraise, its greater length mostly makes up the deficit by assuring that it still contains roughly the same absolute quantity of satisfying material. To be sure, in his favor, Deyo has relied less on covering others' songs and more on his own songwriting skills this time around, ensuring that, for better or worse, the solo project stands more on its own merit than his previous outings. If Saturate deviates only minutely from the majority of Deyo's back catalog or, indeed, much of what currently constitutes modern worship music, it nonetheless shows that he is still capable of generating the same energetic and appealing pop/rock compositions that attracted so many listeners to his previous work.

3 tocks