Review Summary: A great hard rock album that easily stands beside other Christian rock giants.
Christian music overly pumps out hard rock bands, and this is the latest one. This album is entirely predictable. The band sounds like a combination of Decyfer Down, Skillet, Fireflight, and Disciple (all Christian bands), so you can tell that The Letter Black are playing it safe. The end question is whether or not The Letter Black’s
Hanging On By A Thread can excite musical consumers when they’ve heard the same thing so many times before. This band can do just that, surprisingly.
Despite following the bandwagon,
Hanging On By A Thread is neither boring or forgettable. Thanks to the energetic presence of the female vocalist, Sarah Anthony, the album rocks hard. Both on stage and in the album, her performance is fiery like Paramore in their prime. With her strong vocals and cheerfulness, the band is completely believable as a Christian group, and that is certainly good. Now while it’s nice to have such a great lead singer, it’s also nice that their backup singer is proficient. Mark Anthony can hold his own as the band’s second vocalist, in fact, he could become quite a convincing lead singer if Sarah ever had to leave the band. Together, they form one of the better male/female duos in recent memory, which puts Fireflight to shame.
Unfortunately, despite the strengths of the album, the band still has much to improve upon. The songwriting is subpar, and although there are strong choruses aplenty, weaknesses are still easily noticed. For instance, the pace of the lyrics often clash with the pace of the music itself, resulting in awkward moments. When this happens, much attention is brought to the lyrics, and this is problematic because the lyrics are weak as well. They are angst-ridden, definitely not poetic, and this brings the album down quite a few notches. The passion is still there, but it’s a shame that the lyrics don’t match up. As a whole though, the problems barely bring the album down. This is a great start for the young band.
Despite the album’s occasional flaws, the positives outweigh the negatives. The songs are loud, aggressive, catchy, and most importantly, a pile of fun. The Letter Black may not have a truly unique sound yet, but as for now, it doesn’t matter that much. They can rock just as hard as the top Christian rock bands, if not harder sometimes. When looking for an album to pass the time with,
Hanging On By A Thread can be a fun solution.
