38th PARALLEL
Turn The Tides
Squint
2002
Out of Ames, Iowa comes yet another Linkin Park / Incubus clone to share the shelves with Pillar, Pax217 and P.O.D. on the Christian Bookstore "hard music" shelves. That's right, kiddies, 38th Parallel is yet another nu-metal band that neither forges new roads for the genre, nor adds nothing fresh and innovative to the usual status quo.
Turn The Tides, which was held back from release for a bit because of the internal shake-up at Squint Entertainment, has a couple of things going for it- a very good sound production, and very Scriptural-based and well-written lyrics. The sound is crisp, and very tightly mixed throughout the CD, and while I'm obviously not a fan of the "rapcore" genre, 38th Parallel aren't exactly slouches when it comes to playing their instruments. Lyrically, the band leaves no question as to where they stand with Jesus and their faith. And while you can pretty much get the gist of the song by the titles ("Three Times Denied", "You Are My God", et al), there are a few genuine twists on phrases, like the repeated line in "Turn The Tides": "Fix your eyes on the Son / Get burned on the inside".
Turn The Tides' biggest disadvantage, though, is definitely its Linkin Park-lite vibe. With a couple of songs obviously geared toward CCM radio play, and the fact that the disc clocks in a just over 37 minutes, the listener seeking a full-on rock experience might find the CD falling short, literally and figuratively.
Depending strongly how one views the Christian Nu Metal genre, 38th Parallel's Turn The Tides will either be the best thing to hit the market, or just another weak clone of every other Christian band doing this...
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