Review Of "A New Beginning"
by New Birth Total Praise Mass Choir (EMI GOSPEL)
March, 2006 - BlackGospel.com by Jennifer Belot

With the recent paradigm shift in gospel music away from chorale sounds and towards the more contemporary flavors of praise & worship, good chorale music has taken a significant hit.  But the traditional has not blown its last breath, as evidenced in the release of A New Beginning, the sophomore project of the New Birth Total Praise Choir under the directorship of producer-extraordinaire, Kevin Bond.

The Chief Levite, as he is also known has been divinely appointed and established as one of the leading producers of gospel music in the last decade.  First appearing on the scene as a 19 year-old prodigious organist for the Edwin Hawkins Music and Arts Seminar Mass Choir back in 1984 (goodness, I was in grade 1…), he developed his craft under the leading of the Spirit and has now become one of the most sought after producers of gospel music.

Best known for the clean lines of his music, Kevin has been afforded the privilege of collaborating in the success of some of gospel’s biggest names including (please excuse the wanton name-dropping) Donald Lawrence, Kurt Carr, Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, Yolanda Adams, and Marvin Sapp to name but a few.

In 2004, Kevin culminated his directorship from the Worship and Arts Department at Bishop Eddie L Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church with the release of the Stellar-nominated Spirit & Truth, the then debut recording of the Total Praise Choir.  This February, Kevin built on the success of the first album with A New Beginning, released on EMI Gospel.

With remnants of the mega-successful “Suddenly” from their last album, the New Birth TPC exhibits full-bodied vocals ensconced in an orchestral platter on It Shall Come To Pass, the first track of the album.   The same mid-tempo beats can be found in the exultant Lord We Bless Your Name, with its resounding hallelujahs and unapologetic percussive jam session.

The more sedate title track, A New Beginning is an eight-minute marathon (one of many) which tells the story of the believer who knows that God’s mercies are new every morning.  Following the same musical footsteps is the acoustically-flavored Be Healed, an impassioned harkening for the Saints to claim their healing; a message which is aptly tempered by Jeremy Haynes’ ministrations on the saxophone.

God Is has all the makings of an old-school chorale song except for the funky bass-heavy instrumentation which renders this song a contemporary praise hymn, reminiscent in its echoing vocals to nineties era James Hall.  Along the same vein is the ultra-contemporary Christ In Me, a song that stands out as the breakout single of the album with its raw synchronized beats and harmonized chorale voices.

When you have a song titled after one of the biggest hits of the last year, you run the risk of comparison.  But don’t get it twisted, Total Praise’s Make His Praise Glorious (Rejoice) penned by Ohio’s native son, Chris Byrd, is a rocking, guitar heavy, chorale anthem that has nothing of the similarly entitled song made ubiquitous by both Martha Munizzi and Karen Clark Sheard. 

Magnify The Lord is the kind of song one would have heard sung in church by the adult ensemble a couple of decades ago, and it does have throw-back sound complete with the piano and organ as the prominent instruments, however it has been revamped with a syncopated Southern beat and echoing instrumentation that complements rather than overpowers the voices of the TPC. 

Sure to become a praise & worship anthem in churches across the country, Holy Are You Lord (Santo Eres Tu Señor) is a simple song sung in English and Spanish which repeats the eternal truth that God is Holy, and in the words of the TPC psalmists “Worthy to be worshipped, honored and adored”

A New Beginning makes me feel as though my weekend church experience has been neatly prolonged, especially since interspersed throughout the seventeen tracks is the impassioned voice of celebrity evangelist Bishop Eddie L. Long in a four-part emotive sermonette entitled God Starts With A Dreamer. 

The truth of the matter is, I am a traditionalist at heart and this album has definitely fed my chorale addiction in ways I cannot begin to describe.  There is a wholeness and a serenity in the choir sound that is unmatched by any other sub-category in the gospel genre and the 300-voice New Birth Total Praise Choir under the leadership of The Chief Levite has brought a new song of praise to my lips.