CRUCIBLE DIVINE - COMMITMENT

Crucible Divine has released their debut album entitled Commitment. Hailing from Oklahoma Crucible Divine is actually the brainchild of guitar player Raymond Christie. He invited several friends from previous bands to contribute to this release.

Clint Glazer from Eyewitness provides the vocals, Brandon Lopes from Broken Flesh offers his drumming skills, and Kevin Wale delivers on lead guitar and shares the rhythm guitar duties with Ray Christie. In addition Wale and Christie played the bass tracks throughout. Michele Laymon provides the lead vocal on the song Let You Reign, a female vocal which stands out in stark contrast to Glazer’s gritty delivery throughout the rest of the album.

Musically Crucible Divine is an amalgam of different styles. One moment they deliver a strong heavy metal song in Woe to You; yet they offer a melodic 80’s pop metal sound on tracks like Won’t Let Go and Commitment. As you move deeper into the album praise elements stand forth with songs such as Let You Reign and Tell Me. The latter is actually more of a Bon Jovi styled rock ballad circa 1988.

For myself, this sort of scatter shot approach of musical styles drives me crazy. It reminds of some of those early 80’s Rez Band albums where I didn’t know if they were a pop band, new wave band, blues band or rock band. In a similar vein Stryper adopted this style of 2-3 heavy songs, 2-3 poppy songs, 2 ballads ect. It is with much frustration that I would like maybe 30-40% of an album and ditch the rest.

The songs here aren’t bad songs, but they simply aren’t consistent in style. When I buy an album I would hope to hear a consistent style throughout. That’s a personal preference; it would be like hearing Stryper’s song All of Me and hoping the rest of the album is like that. What would you do when you came to More Than a Man or The Way?

A solid production template is evident with clean and crisp tones throughout. Plenty of separation and depth allows the instruments their own space in the mix.

I found most of the songs to be a bit more worthy than memorable. That has nothing to do with style but with strength. A good or great song sticks in the brain after the album is done. That was a factor I didn’t find here, strong effort but the payoff was a bit lacking.

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