Audrey Assad - Heart

The phrase you can't judge a book by it's cover keeps running through my head. Or maybe in this case it should be you can't judge an album by it's cover. A quick glance at the cover for Audrey Assad's Heart I thought to myself that I was about to hear some great new wave indie music that would include a ukulele. Basically I just assumed Audrey Assad would sound like Ingrid Michaelson.

Well Heart has some of those elements (no ukulele), it's not at all what I expected. Instead Audrey Assad offers an album of nice piano pop music. Blessed Are the Ones is a nice opening track. Very laid back and chill. It sets the tone for the record, that is honestly mostly filled with slow jams. The song was co-written by Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken and Webb's input really shines through. Even The Winter is another solid upbeat song.

To be honest though, my first listen through I wasn't really feeling Heart. It was fine but it just wasn't clicking with me. But then Won Me Over hit and it did in fact win me over. The hook on Won Me Over is the strongest on the album and the song just works on every level. It's an extremely memorable song that's going to get stuck in people's heads (in a good way). No Turning Back follows Won Me Over and again it's another song with a great hook that flows perfectly into "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus".

The best moments on Heart are the upbeat, super catchy pop tunes. The slower piano ballads are nice and their are quite a few of them on Heart but Audrey Assad writes and performs killer pop tunes and those songs make this a record worth spinning.