All About Love
Even Barry Bonds misses a pitch now and then, so let's cut Steven Curtis Chapman a little slack with the less-than-spectacularAll About Love. After all, Chapman is riding an incredible wave of success on the heels of back-to-back brilliant releases,SpeechlessandDeclaration. But this follow-up to the dynamic duo finds Chapman touting a collection of "true love" songs that are noble in intent but stylistically drab, including a perplexing cover of theProclaimers' 1980s hit "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)." It's not all flat, though. The title track, "How Do I Love Her," and "Moment Made for Worshipping" are classic Chapman with lyrical contemporary references balanced against age-old wisdom, all buoyed by lively guitar-driven rock. But the remainder of the release seems all too common for an artist who has previously set the bar much higher.--Michael Lyttle