Spoken for
You spend nearly a decade playing praise and worship songs in churches across the country and then, all of a sudden, one of your songs ("I Can Only Imagine") becomes the Song of the Year, a megahit, and your band is Band of the Year. Everything changes? That's what faces Mercy Me and its sophomore release--Spoken For--coming on the heels of the hottest Christian release (Almost There) in the last year. While you won't find anything quite like "Imagine" on this release, Mercy Me still offers an earnest appeal, with trademark slower tracks like "Spoken For" and "Word of God Speak." Lead man Bart Millard and boys can also rock it up a bit with the opener, "The Change Inside Me," and the U2-ish charging anthem "Go." Ironically enough, this second release may not contain a huge hit, but it's much stronger in all phases compared with the band's inconsistent debut. And rest assured, Mercy Me's emphasis is still on praising God and doing so with excellence and sincerity.--Michael Lyttle