- He Knows
- Move Me Aside
- Amazing
- These Times
- Delight
- Again
- What I Say
- Whiter Than Snow
- We Proclaim
- King Jesus
- How Great Thou Art
With more music produced independently these days, it becomes tougher to discern which artists are ready for national coverage. However, when a distributor like TAG picks up a project, it means an artist like Lindsey Kane is now available to Christian bookstores and radio stations, and therefore relevant to the broader Christian music scene.
Kane certainly has the resume of a burgeoning Christian artist. A 24-year-old worship leader and songwriter from Austin, Texas, she developed a strong independent following during her college years, won various contests, and opened for several prominent Christian artists.
At best, her sophomore effort Move Me Aside is the same sort of innocuous acoustic pop you'd hear from the average Christian coffee shop artist. With an occasionally worshipful style reminiscent of Jill Phillips, Jami Smith, and Jill Paquette, Kane offers simple musings on God understanding hurts ("He Knows"), finding contentment in the Lord ("These Times"), and praying for change through surrender ("Move Me Aside"). Standouts range from the simple Brit rock styled praise of "Delight" to a pleasantly stripped down rendition of "How Great Thou Art."
Unfortunately, the writing relies heavily on cliché d Christian pop phrasing, and the clunky rhyming in "Amazing" sounds like a beginner's study in words ending with "er"—"Oh aren't you amazing Father/How you love me like your only daughter/Hold me closer to you than a brother … How you give me everlasting water/I'm the clay and you're the potter." Though probably intended as a scat-like hook, the fast sixteenth-note delivery in the verses of "What I Say" is flat-out annoying. And it doesn't help that the overall production sounds cheaper than most indie projects today.
We'd love to say Lindsey Kane is the next breakout artist in Christian pop, but we've listened to thousands of independent projects over the last five years, and this one simply doesn't measure up in creativity or quality. To borrow a baseball analogy, Move Me Aside is adequate for the minor league, but it suggests Kane isn't ready for the majors just yet.