Undercover - "Forum"

Undercover - Forum
1994, Brainstorm

1. Spill
2. The Moon and the Blue Around
3. Forum (Lullaby)
4. Symbol
5. Carmenita
6. Whoa, Nelly
7. Pocket Full of Money
8. The Overlook (Hosanna)
9. (Tell Me) Everything About You
10. Union

I remember getting Forum from Arrowhead Christian Bookstore. Back in the day Arrowhead (which was about an hour away from my town), was like a Mecca for music - second only to Kingdom Bound. Their selection was a lot bigger than my hometown store and so I was always excited to go there. This time however, I either had everything there or there just wasn't anything new - except Forum - which I wasn't wild about. I remember how disappointed I was at the selection that day. It was also really warm that year for fall and that made me mad too because I get mad about stupid things.

You can probably guess how this review is going to go at this point. Originally, I wasn't thrilled with this album. Except "Spill" and "The Moon and the Blue Around" which is... I don't know what style it is but I loved it then and I love it now. The rest of the album is pretty diverse with a lot of acoustic songs and some country influences. We've also got an electric version of "Symbol" from the Brow Beat compilation. So yeah... I like it a lot better now except "Whoa, Nelly" which I still don't care for but I couldn't really tell you why.

Useless Fact: I believe this was the band's last album. They came out with another one called I Rose Falling but I've heard it's not that good.

Undercover - "Devotion"

Undercover - Devotion
1992/2018, LoFidelity

1. Work It Out
2. Man, Oh Man
3. Sea of Tranquility
4. Purple Flower
5. Devotion
6. Promenade
7. Where I Should Be
8. Dark Night
9. All That I Am
10. So Wonderful
Bonus Tracks
11. Cry Myself To Sleep (Live)
12. Witch Hunt (Live)
13. Devotion (Live)
14. Promenade (Acoustic Live)
15. Devotion (Live)
16. So Wonderful (Live)

A long, long time ago...back when the world was new, Undercover's Devotion inspired my youth group's logo. See, there's a song called "Purple Flower" on here and along with the mention of a purple flower in The Choir's "If I Had a Yard" we thought there was some sort of something going on. So a purple flower was our logo for "The Hippy Youth Group." Named that because a bunch of other kids from another district were like, "look at those hippies over there." Yes, I know Circle Slide pre-dated Devotion by two years so there couldn't have possibly been any correlation. No need to send letters.

Anyway, this was my first introduction to Undercover. I saw the previous album, Balance of Power, in my local bookstore but chose something else over it. I came into the scene way too late to have ever heard their more punk stuff. Devotion rocks pretty hard and while I didn't love it originally, I've grown quite fond of it lately. Quite a familiar refrain I've been singing in reviews these days. I blame it on trying to reclaim my lost youth. The original is really hard to find but the band has completed a Kickstarted a reissue and that's where my copy came from. The extra tracks are all right, mostly live stuff. I also appreciate that they recreated the liner notes of the original album. I know it's kind of a weird, small thing but sometimes when these reissues come out they redo the liner notes and often they don't look as good.

Useless Fact: As far as I know Ojo Taylor is no longer a Christian and is a college professor somewhere.