Blessid Union Of Souls - The Mission Field (2011)

During their commercial heyday in the second half of the 1990s, Blessid Union of Souls tended to straddle between being a religiously oriented and a secular band, titling their debut hit "I Believe," but also interpretable as romantically devotional rather than specifically Christian. Since the band left major-label status, however, it has turned in a more overtly religious direction, and The Mission Field can only be seen as a CCM effort. Lead singer Eliot Sloan directs songs to the Almighty, lamenting in "Sweet Providence," "I fell from grace with You," pleading "Oh, Father, fill my heart/Make me Your vessel true" in the title song, and proclaiming in "The Only Song," "For all the blessings that You bring/You're the only song I wanna sing." Sloan sings such songs in his emotive, throaty tenor over sweet, melodic pop/rock, sometimes overlaid with strings for an even more inspirational effect. Blessid Union of Souls still sound much as they did in the ‘90s, and it would be easy to imagine some of these songs being hits, that is, if the ‘90s had never ended. The Mission Field combines new material with several songs ("Healing," "I Still Believe in Love," "Back from the Dead") that have also appeared on such independent albums as Perception and Close to the Edge.~The Mission Field Review by William Ruhlmann