Most country acts choose to temper holiday sentimentality with a little religion.
Sawyer Brown
takes a different approach. As its title telegraphs,
Hallelujah He Is Born
is a distinctly religious Christmas album -- only a handful of songs aren't explicitly religious, and even they have a religious underpinning. That is the saving grace of the album, the one element that makes
stand out from the pack. The album still has the slick country-pop atmosphere that marks not only
Sawyer Brown's
work, but contemporary country in general -- but its religious conviction makes it one of the more original (and, actually, better) country-pop Christmas records of recent years. ~ Thom Owens