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Gold City - Heaven
Website: http://www.goldcityqt.com
Producer: Doug Riley
Song Titles: "Heaven," "Way Down Deep In My Soul," "Without A Word," "Well Of Grace," "My Hiding Place," "My Non-Stop Flight," "I'm Never Alone," "Still Small Voice," "Wayfaring Stranger," and "I've Got A Feeling"

Don't let the lack of a bar code on the back of the CD fool you. Gold City's newest release may have the markings of a "table project"...no major distributor listed on the packaging, group members playing most of the instruments, cover songs abound, etc....but Heaven competes with most top label projects in terms of sonic quality. The biggest plus is that the group invested enough time recording Heaven to get the vocals sounding solid. Creativity went into the vocal arrangments also, and it shows.

The recording kicks off with the title track, an energetic showcase for Daniel Riley. "Way Down Deep In My Soul" is up next, giving Jonathan Wilburn a chance to do his thing. Bill Lawrence gets "way down" near the end of the song. Most table projects are made up of cover songs, and Heaven is no exception. Most (if not all) of these songs have been heard before, but at least they aren't songs that have been worn out from over-use by too many groups. Two songs ("Without A Word" and "My Hiding Place") come from noted choral music arranger and songwriter Joe Parks. Steve Ladd is featured on "Without A Word," a slow paced song about the humility of Christ. "My Hiding Place" is a bit more subdued in vocal style than is typical for Gold City, but very appropriate for the song. "I'm Never Alone" is also out of character for Gold City with its country ballad treatment, but again, they execute it well. They maintain the country feel on the Gerald Crabb number "Still Small Voice." "Wayfaring Stranger" gives Channing Eleton a chance to get some piano exposure during the intro and extended outro, as well as accompanying Lawrence's vocals on the verses.

About the only thing missing from Heaven that you'd find on a full blown Gold City studio project like First Class is the touch of Steve Mauldin. Without his brass punctuated orchestrations, an expected piece of the Gold City sound is missing. This recording hangs together nicely from a conceptual point of view, though. As you've probably gathered from reading the paragraph above, there's more of a country music vibe in the tracks than you'd expect to find on a Gold City CD. Studio musicians David Johnson and Jeremy Medkiff sit in with the Band of Gold and do an excellent job giving Heaven a consistent flavor of its own.

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