Freaky March 14th, 2010

OK, After a few weeks listening to tobyMac’s new album, Tonight, here’s a review.
Personally, when I listen to a new album, I have a first impression, then have a “lasting” impression. With every album, there will be songs that you will like right away, others that you will like after listening a few more times, songs you don’t like and lastly songs that you progressively don’t like.
Tonight was launched on February 10, 2010, which I was waiting for since hearing “City On Our Knees” on the radio in the preceeding months. I have been a fan of tobyMac’s work in both his solo efforts and his time with dcTalk. His previous album Portable Sounds was probably his best work so far.
I bought my album from iTunes, so it features 14 songs on the album. Physical CD’s had a few extra re-mixes, if I’m not wrong. Anyway the songs are:
1. Tonight
2. Get Back Up
3. Funky Jesus Music
4. City on Our Knees
5. ShowStopper
6. Changed Forever
7. Hold On
8. LoudNClear
9. Hey Devil
10. Wonderin’
11. Captured
12. Start Somewhere
13. Break Open The Sky
14. City On Our Knees (Radio Edit)
My first opinion on Tonight was excellent. Running through the first four songs, I was impressed knew this was another great album. I hear that when tobyMac wrote Tonight, he instantly thought of John Cooper of Skillet to come in for this song. I couldn’t agree more. Cooper’s voice was perfect for this song.
One thing fans would noticed from this album is the “fillers” between tracks. I didn’t mind them so much, especially when listening to a album from start to finish (as how a album should be listened to), as much thought and mixing goes into an album creation. This is to provide the listener a more truer artistic listening enjoyment. The fillers do get a bit annoying when you put your music library on random. At times I had hoped he would had put the fillers as separate tracks like Janet Jackson did in Rhythm Nation.
Tonight has your standard, pop, funk and rock tracks. Also featured once again is TrueDog aka Truett’s song, Toby’s son. I must say he is getting better and hope his next outing would be a full song. I think he can handle it.
One thing i didn’t like was the placement of Wonderin’. The song was reasonable and featured Relient K’s Matt Theissen. I felt it’s order right after Hey Devil kind of weird and didn’t quite flow. If there was a time to put in a filler, it would have been here.
Apart from that, an excellent album. You won’t be disappointed.
My Rating: 8.5/10
Recommendation: BUY BUY BUY™