Newsboys Born Again - Review

So firstly, and something that you have heard before on this blog; sorry for the absence in posting recently, life has got rather busy, I’ve come back from uni, found myself a job, and no spare time! However in the many days since my last post about Dropbox, the new Newsboy’s album has been released, and if you don’t want to read the rest of this blog; it is amazing, go and buy it!

For those who don’t know the backstory, Newsboys have been around for quite awhile, and Born Again is their 15th studio album. They have had several line up changes over the years, and recently lead singer Pete Furler left the band and was replaced by Michael Tait, formerly of DC Talk. So coming in this album the main question was ‘how would Tait fit into the Newboys’ sound?’

Thankfully the answer that question is quite simply ‘fantastically!’ The overall feeling of Born Again is the radio friendly, sing along, pop rock sound that we have grown to know, love and expect from the Newsboys. However the focus of this album is unashamed aimed at the church with a cover of Hillsong’s Mighty to Save as the penultimate track but also tracks like the title track ‘Born Again’ giving the challenge:

I've met the One with two scarred hands
Giving Him the best of everything that 's left of the life inside this man
I 've been born again

The lyrics to track two ‘One Shot’ also continue in this challenge to stand out from the crowd and to ‘sing about… God’, the main focus being to use the one shot that we have to live and speak for Jesus where we are, together.

One of the things you can say is that each track has a different sound, while still being unmistakably Newsboys, there is a difference in each track. A comparison that has been made about ‘Miracles’ is that it sounds a lot like Muse, which for some people will be a good thing, for others not so much. Other tracks, such as ‘Way Beyond Myself’ hails back to some of the early Pete Furler tracks with the synth sounds.

The album ends with a second cover, this time of the DC Talk track ‘Jesus Freak’, my personal opinion is that while it isn’t a bad cover, I question why it was needed… Simply because Tait is the new front man, does not mean that you have to bring out the go to DC Talk track.

To conclude, the album is good, very good. It is even in running for my album of the year, however there is a lot of time between then and now including a new Anberlin album… so we shall have to wait and see.

Rating: 4.5 out 5 stars

Spotify Link
Buy It (£12.99)