Is it possible to make devotional music that excites an audience outside the Christian community? After listening to Intimacy, the answer is a resounding yes!

ACCRA, GHANA, December 20, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Is it possible to make devotional music that excites an audience outside the Christian community? After listening to Intimacy, the answer is a resounding yes! The album is the creation of husband-and-wife duo Prof. Richard and Dr. Sheena Lovia Boateng who lead the Christian Pop band ‘Believe Over Hope’.

And why does it work so well? Firstly, it doesn't preach, and the lyrics are written in such a way that they can be applied to people from any walk of life and no matter what life views you hold dear. Secondly, the real icing on the cake is the musical blends that the album is threaded from, everything from soul to pop to dance to R&B and beyond.

After the spoken word introduction, a declaration of the love and faith that the couple share, we head into Thank You Sheena which continues the theme of appreciation over a soulful dance groove. Piano lines cascade, gentle dance beats set up an infectious rhythm and the vocals are both emotional and expressive.

Birthday From Heaven takes a pop stance but one driven by rich, reggaeton-infused vibes. It is smooth and sassy, full of gorgeous groove and rolling rhythms, lilting along in a way that dares you not to dance and again full of positivity celebrating both another birthday and the love that the two have for each other.

And if proof was needed that Believe Over Hope easily moves with the times, the version of Dark Valentine found here is one that drives along on a skittering trap sound, all sharp percussion and bass pulses. But whereas such a sound would normally be used to set up a hip-hop sort of feel, here the added infusion of their homespun influences means that the result is what they quite perfectly call AfroTrap, a rich blend of African pop-dance traditions and the sound of more Western originated urban sounds.

Morning Coffee is a wonderful analogy, alluding to the emotional feelings and experience of waking up next to a loved one being like the joyful awakening that the first caffeine hit of the day delivers. It is sweet and soulful and, as refreshing as the experience that it sings about, a slow and seductive EDM beat entwining with the layers of vocal harmonies and electronic washes.

It is not until you get to I Have Found Jesus that you are reminded of the devotional nature of this album. This, as the name suggests, is a more unequivocal declaration of faith in Jesus. But again, it is wonderfully accessible and the sound has much in common with the soul singers and blues divas of times past but musically made over for modern musical tastes.

The seventh track, Intimacy, Draw Me To Your Love, is gorgeously slow-burning, the ultimate sonic act of devotion and love, rising up from a graceful neo-soul sound, the song slowly surrounding itself with increasing musical layers, additional instrumentation, rising beats, cocooning itself in swathes of extra harmonies and deftly moving from understatement to anthem over the course of six minutes.

You Stole My Diamond is a timeless pop-soul track that again rises out of a fairly minimal place, one where the vocals are the main focal point before things take on a more dramatic tone to match and underline the power of the message, that physical belongings and money pale into insignificance in the face of the love of the Lord. And again, such a song would not seem out of place in the pop charts and it is this ability to blend musical accessibility with a devotional message that makes the album and the artists behind it, such a potent act and such successful creators.

We end with Lord Please Keep Carrying Me, perhaps the most traditional set of lyrics found here and put to a folk driven sound; acoustic, finger-picked guitars add sublime sounds, their electric cousins add weight, beats drive and the musical dynamic is allowed to rise and fall to match the power and the poignancy of the lyrics as required.

The band partnered with the African music streaming platform, Aftown, to create this unique piece of art.

Someday all such albums will be made this way.

Believe Over Hope
Believe Over Hope
+233 24 885 2426
music@believeoverhope.org
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Dark Valentine Africa - AfroTrap

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