Song to the King

Sounds like … a blast from worship's past with a sound and lyrical style akin to older Vineyard and Maranatha projectsAt a glance … in a marketplace already overcrowded with praise-and-worship, Pocket Full of Rocks doesn't contribute much to a scene that's short on creativityTrack Listing The Welcome Song Closer to You Worth Everything Song to the King Now I Sing Bigger Falling Let the Worshippers Arise This Is the Life More of You Jesus Losing Me

The modern worship boom is still in full gear, thanks to a number of gifted worship artists (Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Delirious, and Charlie Hall for example) who have managed to keep things innovative and fresh, both lyrically and musically. If only more would embrace a similar artistic vision in worship music.

With more than 10 years of experience on the indie scene, and songs recorded by Michael W. Smith ("Let It Rain" on Worship) and Phillips, Craig & Dean ("Let the Worshippers Arise"), Texas-based band Pocket Full of Rocks has crisscrossed the U.S. to play the college scene, youth conferences, and countless retreats. But despite their impressive resumé, the band's debut feels like a step backward with cliché-ridden sentiments and a dated musical style that hearkens back to the days when Maranatha and Vineyard defined worship music—which is not necessarily a good thing in 2006.

While the tracks on Song to the King are certainly well produced and simple enough for congregations to pick up, they regurgitate the usual themes with the same unimaginative rhetoric. Starting out as a dead-ringer for FFH's "One of These Days," there's little more to "Bigger" than the observation, "You're bigger than me, Lord." In "Falling," a song about our inadequacy in light of God's greatness, frontman Michael Farren sings, "Father it remains a mystery why you still love me when you see the bad in me." A remarkable truth, sure, but presented in an unremarkable way—an unfortunate flaw that permeates most of these songs.

Considering the album's title, a song to the King should be the best and most creative song of all—but it should be the kind that inherently reflects the artistry of the Creator himself, and not something that's been duplicated countless times already in recent years.