For fans of alternative music, Seattle, Washington, is one of the top music cities in the country. The city has spawned great bands like Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. It's a great place for Christian music as well (Aaron Sprinkle has produced many many albums in his studio in Seattle). It's also where young rock group The Acclaim call home. Their first attempt at getting their music out there is with five songs comprising their EP The Time Is Now. Seven guys come together to perform the songs that vary in sound. "Give It All" gives off a Paulson or Farewell Flight vibe, with an alternative core and some pretty good synth throughout. It's a decent song, but the drums seemed to need a little more work during the bridge. "Not Satisfied" takes on more of a typical worship sound and leads into "Anthem," which does turn out to be somewhat anthemic. It's worshipful, but severely lacking creativity in the lyrics. The same can also be said for "Solid Rock," though to The Acclaim's credit, they didn't write the song. It's an old hymn by Edward Mote (written in the 1800s), so they couldn't really do anything about the lyrics, but musically it also suffers due to it being a little boring, but mainly that it's just very simple and displays no creativity at all. "Urgency" fairs better, but still follows in the footsteps of "Anthem." In The Acclaim's bio, they cite bands like MuteMath as influences, and in "Give It All," you can sort of hear it. But after that, that sound pretty much goes out the window. It's disappointing, because "Give It All" showed some definite potential for The Time Is Now to be a pretty good independently produced EP. But the four tracks after that just fell into the cookie cutter worship music mold, and it really failed to impress. The first song showed that they have the ability to make a good album, now hopefully they can do what it takes to make that happen next time around.

- Review date: 2/24/10, written by Scott Fryberger of Jesusfreakhideout.com