A marvelous truth about praising God is that He does not require perfection to do so. Believers with voices of all kinds singing to their Lord are counted equally as beautiful as those with strong voices. Such is the case for Dwayne Parker, aka
Knight 7. The Guyanese/Canadian singer has recently released his first album,
The Sword of the Spirit, which is a very underproduced, Caribbean-tinged gospel/r&b album that features struggling vocals. Parker's heart for worship is fully on display, but sadly, so is what seems to be a poor production quality. While some Christian music fans may prefer to have gentle music over the louder, more boisterous sort (the former is what you get with this album), Parker may have benefitted more from louder music, as his mostly off-key vocals do tend to drown out everything else. If Knight 7 releases any more albums in the future, this might be something to take into consideration. If you want to make music, but you aren't so great at one aspect of songwriting, amping up the other aspects tends to help slightly - the integrity of this move may be fairly questionable, but it helps. At the end of the line,
The Sword of the Spirit has many flaws, and I certainly can't make a big recommendation for it, but perhaps Dwayne Parker will take the album's weaknesses into consideration and come out the other side with a stronger product next time around.
- Review date: 7/9/14,
Scott Fryberger of Jesusfreakhideout.com