Born Again

The Kingsmen Quartet (not to be confused with the Kingsmen, who presumably would never have released an album titled Born Again) have been on the gospel scene for more than 30 years. When founder and leader Eldridge Fox died in 2002, the group's name went into semi-retirement, but has since been revived by the group's longstanding bass singer, Ray Reese, who now leads the reconstituted group. Their second album for the Horizon label is more of the same: tight harmonies, rollicking uptempo numbers, and slow ones that tend to get bogged down in overripe emotion and, sometimes, just plain syrupy goopiness. For the former, there are irresistible spiritual rave-ups like the gorgeous "Beautiful Home" and "I'll Have a Home," as well as the country-fried "If I Lived to Tell It All," which features some great hotshot guitar picking. On the goopier side are the mildly funny (but mostly just kind of dumb) "Excuses" and the excessively moist "Jesus I Love You." Gospel music's true believers won't find anything to object to in this album at all, but the rest of the world will probably want to pick and choose from among its offerings.