Flying Into Daybreak

Between my trip to Ottawa and hanging out with my brother during his Reading Week, I've had little or no time to do some things I've been wanting to do, especially getting a chance to sit down and listen to Charlie Hall's new album, "Flying Into Daybreak", and write a review for it. After talking to Drew, we both agreed that this is not a great album from cover to cover, but it does have a few good songs on it. Overall I would give it a 7.5/10.

Show/Hide Review

What initially attracted me to Charlie Hall was when we heard him at Passion Toronto. He opened for Chris Tomlin and David Crowder, and we've heard him in many albums produced by the 268generation crew. What was curious, was the fact that he had so few albums under his belt. I think this album here gives a good indication of why.

Charlie's not a great singer. He had a nasal sound in his voice, it sounds very sharp, not tonal sharp, just sharp. You have to hear it to understand what I'm saying. He sounds a bit like.. if the Counting Crows guy were holding nose closed while singing.

However, where Charlie makes up for his bad singing is in his songwriting. He's a bit less mainstream from the other christian leaders. When you listen to Christian music, you find that the same vocabulary is being used over and over. With Charlie, his songs sound lyrically. Also, the music itself is different. It's not the standard rock or standard pop. It tries to be a bit of everything.

My beef with this CD is that he tries too hard to make it different. I can't tell what his style is. He tries it all and it makes it confusing for the listener to know what kind of a song is coming up next. The CD just doesn't flow well. Maybe all the songs were made at different times and he just threw it all together.

Center

Chorus:
Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our lives
Be the center of our lives

You're the center of the universe
Everythin was made in You, Jesus
Breath of every living thing
Everyone was made for You

Pre-Chorus:
You hold everything together
You hold everything together

Tag:
We life our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around your life
We life our eyes to heaven, to You