Sounds like … Point of Grace's familiar adult contemporary pop style, but with some slight country-pop accents similar to Martina McBride, the Dixie Chicks, and Faith Hill.
At a glance … though not exactly a departure, How You Live delivers more of what Point of Grace is used to, as well as a few nods to country pop.
Like many veteran groups in recent years, Point of Grace has fallen victim to shifting paradigms in Christian music. From their 1993 debut through 2001's Free to Fly, the quartet was a radio phenomenon, scoring an unprecedented 26 No. 1 singles. That streak ended inexplicably with 2004's I Choose You, an album that yielded not one chart-topper for the women. The album itself wasn't really to blame, offering more of the same harmony-laden pop that made Point of Grace famous. For whatever reason, the industry suddenly seemed to move past their sound.
Which left the group with an important decision: stay the course or change with the times. The result is How You Live, an ever-so-slight stylistic detour into uncharted territory. The disc is just as adult contemporary as anything Point of Grace has done in the past, produced to pristine perfection by pop guru Brown Bannister (Avalon, Third Day). But now the inspiration isn't so much modern pop, inspirational, or light R&B—it's country pop.
No, the ladies haven't gone western, but several of the disc's selections carry a marked Nashville influence. The motivational title track, for example, is a terrific country-pop anthem about living life to the fullest, not unlike the radio-readiness of Martina McBride. The most twangy tune of all is "Any Way," a track rife with warm acoustics, fiddles, pedal steel, and banjo, though elsewhere the country influence is limited to vocal styling and phrasing (more pop than country, like much of Faith Hill's music)....
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