(Photo : Tara Jackson )

Tara Jackson is a belter.  Yet, she's not the ceiling-screeching type that would win truckload of votes on shows such as American Idol.  Rather, Jackson soars with a soulful finesse.  Mastering the art of subtlety Jackson can be shimmer with a quiet emotional intensity when she careens a slow gait.  But she can also let out her signature growl and when she does that she can tear through the roof with a bluesy melisma.  "Love Come Down' is this North Carolina native's sophomore record.  And her return back to the recording studio is a much heralded affair.  "Love Came Down" is produced by Jay Speight and Tyrus Morgan both veterans in the music business.  For those who read writers' credits on albums one would have known that Speight co-wrote Trace Adkins' "Ala-Freakin-Bama" and Travis Tritt's "High Time for Getting Down," while Tyrus Morgan is credited as a co-writer to Newsong's "The Same God" and their recent "Who Loved You First."  Despite Speight's involvement in country music, "Love Come Down" is not a country record.  Rather, it's distinctively pop with flushes of rock, blues and adult contemporary balladry.  Lyrically, the songs are unapologetically God-centered with a salient desire for more of God that is glowing contagious.

First things first, "Love Come First" is not a full-length album rather it only contains seven tracks.  But as the adage goes, it's not quantity that counts but it's the quality.  And here we are served with seven songs, all of which have "A" inscribed on their report cards.  Jackson knows how to pack in a punch with the counter-cultural popish album opener "All About Love."  Without kowtowing to the nebulous relativism of our post-modern culture, Jackson challenges us to re-consider the meaning of life.  To her, life begins when we embrace "the love that is stretch out on the Cross."  And she goes on show that a life most satisfying is a life given to the worship of God on the bombastic guitar-laden "Make a Name for You."  On the superbly climax building ballad "Love Come Down," Jackson shows what an expressive and emotionally-laden voice she has.  

With "Mercy Mercy" she puts on her dancing boots for some good time Motown R&B funk as the saving mercy of Jesus gets a rousing ovation.  Jackson certainly knows how to grab our attention with "Relentless."  Her use of restrain, pauses, pacing and her varying emotional nuances in her voice deftly builds just the right tension engaging us with great spiritual depth as she delves into a gorgeous exposition of God's love. Not since Hillsong Live's "Cry of the Broken" has the cello been used to such great affect as on the penultimate ballad "If You See What I See."  While we get to hear Jackson at her most heartfelt apogee on "Great, Great God;" this is a tender love song to the Almighty with Jackson backed only by a piano. 

In our age of overstatement where artists trump on loud stadium building sounds and clever polytechnics, Jackson uses just her voice.  Her well-invested emotional verities within her voice have a way of moving these God-centered songs from just our speaker way into our heart.  Though short on time and the number of songs, "Love Come Down" has a way of making long and lasting strides in ways that truly connects us to our "great, great God."