The brother and sister duo of Garrett Vandenberg & Katelynn Florke have released their album, Overwhelmed. The two have been leading worship together since they were kids and now are sharing their talents in the form of recorded music.

The 11-track album features mostly cover songs, but also includes two originals in "I Am Made New" and "Perfect Lord." The former features some of my favorite lyrics from the release -- and even in a good majority of the worship out today. Garrett sings, "Steel pierces your hands and a testament's broken; everything's changed. Liquid life bleeding out of Your wrists and into my veins," in the first verse. The second line, in particular, is an interesting look at Christ shedding His blood for our sins and is written in a way not often heard. "Perfect Lord" is based on scriptures found in 1 Corinthians 15 and Psalms 19. While the lyrics aren't as strong and creative here, it's still a nice song. From the covers aspect, most of the covers aren't new versions of songs that have already been played to death. The most common song heard today is very likely the title track, Big Daddy Weave's "Overwhelmed." Others, like All Son's and Daughters' "Brokenness Aside," are lesser known to the masses, but are still really good songs. Another solid cover is Future of Forestry's "Closer to Me." Musically, the album relies heavily on the acoustic guitar, but does go for some pop flavors here and there as well. For my money, the original song "I Am Made New" is hands down the best track available, but the covers from All Sons and Daughters, Future of Forestry, and Shawn McDonald ("Captivated") are also really solid additions to this collection.

The siblings have done an excellent job in reimagining some of these songs. Kudos should be given because they didn't just take the easy way out and record all of today's hits. They stretched across the spectrum of CCM a bit and weren't afraid to go older, or more unknown, with their selections. The music is lovely and the vocals are just as strong from both Garrett and Katelynn. It's evident that these two work well together and have been doing so for a while. Hopefully the two will use this release as a platform to go after a full-length album of original songs.

As it stands, Overwhelmed isn't the most engaging worship album, but it certainly offers some enjoyability and a bit of a change of pace from the repetition of other artists getting played on repeat on CCM radio. Fans of worship music should definitely check out this collection of songs. The duo is talented and you may even learn a few new songs.

- Review date: 6/7/16, written by Michael Weaver of Jesusfreakhideout.com

 

 Record Label: None
 Album length: 10 tracks: 45 minutes, 14 seconds
 Street Date: May 20, 2016
 Buy It: iTunes
 Buy It: Bandcamp

1. Captivated (4:05)
2. The More I Seek You (4:24)
3. Overwhelmed (5:14)
4. Brokenness Aside (4:17)
5. Beautiful Savior (4:35)
6. Redemption (1:02)
7. Made New (4:24)
8. Give Me Jesus (5:02)
9. Perfect Lord (3:08)
10. Closer to Me (3:44)
11. Closer (5:19)