ReviewShine Wednesday: The Redemption Center & Time for a Break…

As you’ve probably noticed, things have slowed down a bit around here lately. I’ve mentioned that my wife and I are expecting our first child next week, and I’ve spent a lot of time recently preparing for her arrival. With that in mind, this will likely be my final post here for the next few weeks. I plan to take a couple of weeks off from work getting to know my daughter, and I think it best to take some time off here as well.

I’ll keep listening to new stuff, and I may pop in with a short post or a weekend YouTube posting every now and then… but it will be pretty quiet here for most of August. Keep me bookmarked, though. I’ll be back.

With that…

Every Wednesday, I feature a brief review of at least one album that has been submitted to me through the ReviewShine website. I have cleverly titled this recurring segment “ReviewShine Wednesday.”

Today, we feature The Redemption Center from Rochester, NY. The band is the product of a collaboration between songwriters J. Stephen Smith and Jesse Sprinkle. The two have worked together for over a decade with the New York based record label, Blind Records. Sprinkle was a recording artist signed to Blind, and Smith worked directly for the label. The new album Land of Plenty marks their first attempt at working together in a creative capacity with Smith providing the majority of the lyrics and Sprinkle serving as producer. The result is a punchy collection of Americana tunes that is simply a lot of fun to listen to. Smith and Sprinkle have assembled a fine collection of musicians around them and sound perfectly comfortable singing and playing together.

This is the song that popped up on my random iPod playlist Monday and inspired me to go back and listen to the rest of this album. The song features original music from The Redemption Center with lyrics from the late songwriter Mark Heard.

The Redemption Center: I’m Afraid of You (Buy Album)