CD Review: Stellar Kart – Everything is Different Now
Artist: Stellar Kart
Album: Everything Is Different Now
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewer: Alex Judge
With their latest release, “Everything is Different Now,” the four piece punk rock band Stellar Kart honors their humble beginnings as a youth group praise team. They return to their roots by releasing an album with a very strong worship focus.
It’s not necessarily an album that will be played in church services around the world, but it features songs that will facilitate everyday praise via worshipful lyrics and upbeat songs.
Stellar Kart - Everything Is Different Now
This album is unique for SK in many ways. For one, this is their first album with a title song. This album also contains four cover songs, three more than all of their other albums combined. Thirdly, this album has a number of songs with very different styles for SK, specifically “Spirit in the Sky” and “You Never Let Go.”
During the writing process, SK collaborated with many different writers. The varying perspectives helped make this album the best album I have seen from SK lyrically. A lot of their older worshipful music seemed less authentic to me, but there is a realness to the lyrics that cut through my preconceived notion of what a Stellar Kart worship album might sound like. These songs helped put me in a place of praise and adoration of God, especially “Rescue,” both lyrically and musically fantastic.
The cover songs that are included were not very exciting to me. I was looking forward to hearing the Stellar Kart spin on these well-known songs, but I didn’t find them well adapted to the SK sound. “We Shine” was too similar to the original by Fee.
Overall, “Everything is Different Now” is a good worship album with a few very high points mixed with some low points. Rhythmically, the songs can be unpredictable, which will keep you on your toes as a listener and engaged in what is going on in the music. If you are tired of the typical “church music” worship, give these guys a try.
