Grace Hotel
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Album Reviews

Christafari doesn’t have to be as good and adventurous as it is. After all, the pickings among American Christian reggae bands are pretty slim. Still, Gravity makes for another bold step. Gone are white frontman Mark Mohr’s desperately-wannabe-Jamaican affectations. In vocal attacks and lyrics, he now comes on like a guy just wanting to makežand expandžmusic that touches him. That expansion includes dips into clubby drum & bass, reggae/alt-soul fusion, jazz, Anglo-East Indian bhangra, and more styles from a musical diaspora representing the non-Caucasian worldžall without losing the act’s central identity. Mohr’s songwriting, with its veiled autobiographical references, continues to be deeply scriptural. As reggae once again is embraced by a wider pop listenership, Christafari’s expansive sound deserves a thoughtful ear from Christian and nonbelieving audiences alike. Gravity should give them a serious boost.

~ Jamie Lee Rake

This album is what the glossy press kit calls a "therapeutic sonic collage," an inventive and golly gee clever medley of styles "deeply rooted in the traditional reggae sound" that excitingly delivers its "hard-hitting" message with never a moment of silence, a fact of which the label is tremendously proud, because after all, it's a "clever musical concoction" that is "guaranteed to emanate pure niceness" with loads of biblical quotations and "tantalizing interlude segments" that amazingly fill in (imagine!) what would have been the brief silences between songs, all of which serve to make the album an exalted form of "highly entertaining sonic art," presenting to desperately needy sinners some "contemporary psalms with infectious melodies" delivered over "syncopated rhythms;" and it's really, really entertaining and cerebral when you stop to think about it (although stopping, especially to think, isn't part of the equation here) in a this-is-serious-art-can't-you-tell-because-it's-so-avant-garde kind of way, packaging its "solemn" message in an "irresistible" form that delivers a "diverse and unorthodox sound" without ever stopping for more than a split second because it's such an important and terrific "ambient hybrid," in fact it's a veritable "musical delicacy tenderly stuffed with the word of God" and "replete with incessant delays and eternal reverberations," whatever incessant delays and eternal reverberations are, impressively pulled together in a "masterful" production, which is just as well considering that God seems to have been pretty much responsible, although Mark Mohr gets the producer, songwriter and singer credits, as well as his picture on the cover; so if you can abide this sort of thing, including or especially the proudly blatant attempt to persuade all listeners to "gravitate toward the Word of God," then good for you, and you'll be blessed, I'm sure.