The Elements

The Elements is kind of a shocker of an album. You'd never thought after Portable Sounds he'd ever make a truly top tier album again. Sure, This Is Not A Test was a decent return to form after two bland, uninspired albums, but it wasn't really on the same level as his past work in my opinion. Neither is this album, but it does do the unthinkable. It's good.

The title track opens the album quite strong. Production from Tommee Profitt will only ever result in a very cinematic track, but since he's very good at that, can you really complain? I got to see TobyMac open with this song at what was actually my very first ever concert, and it's pretty great live. I Just Need U went on to be his biggest his, and despite not breaking any new ground conceptually, the song is pretty fire. This is the first album with a song without his son. The world rejoices, until we realize this is because their relationship was drifting apart, as documented on Scars. Scars is a great song; I like it a lot, although the remix with Sarah Reeves is definitely my preferred version. Everything and Edge of My Seat prove TobyMac can still make an incredibly slick pop song. Starts With Me is one of the more forgettable tracks on the album, but it's a good song dealing with difficult issues in a decent enough way. It's You is REALLY the most forgettable song here. It genuinely has no place on the record and could be removed without me feeling anything. Horizon, Hello Future, and Overflow continue with the slick pop numbers, and while See The Light is not the best closer, I've accepted at this point that TobyMac is just not particularly good at ending his albums.

So yeah, album is actually quite good. It definitely falls into many of the classic lyrical pitfalls for radio-friendly Christian music, but the instrumentation is good enough to save it for the most part, and it's certainly at least better than most of the other music in the space, for whatever that's worth.

Favorite Song: Everything
Least Favorite Song: It's You