Knapp’S Second Cd A Powerful Effort

Mon., Sept. 18, 2000

Kathy Bula, East Valley

“Lay it Down” by Jennifer Knapp

Jennifer Knapp’s debut album, “Kansas,” introduced us to a thoughtful, introspective songwriter with a powerful guitar. The album earned her many accolades in the industry and won her many dedicated fans.

Her follow-up album, “Lay it Down,” contains the same sort of deeply personal songs found on “Kansas,” but with a slightly more mature style. The music relies less on Knapp’s skillful acoustic rhythm playing and more on electric instruments and rock-style production, creating a fuller, funkier, more polished sound than her last album.

Among the best of the tracks is “Into You,” which opens with a jolting, heavily distorted guitar riff and occasionally is reminiscent of Alanis Morissette’s hard-rock songs. “All Consuming Fire” is a bit Caribbean in feel, and bluegrass mandolin wunderkind Chris Thile adds a unique twist to Shawn Colvin’s “Diamond in the Rough,” making it another of the better tracks on the album.

While the album costs the same as a normal CD, it includes a bonus disc that contains three different mixes of “A Little More,” two radio ads, and an interview.

The interview is pretty interesting, but the rest was superfluous.

Knapp truly is a “diamond in the rough” in the quality-deprived Christian music industry. Her musical talent and masterful songwriting rival even the best of the secular rock artists, and lyrically she has hit the oft-missed mark of spiritually inspiring without obnoxiously proselytizing.

It’s artists like Knapp that keep many of us from giving up on Christian music altogether.

Grade: A

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