Like 2010's bright and engaging
Tonight,
Toby McKeehan's fifth solo outing further distances the Grammy- and Dove-award winning contemporary christian music artist from his hip-hop past, offering up 12 perfectly executed slabs of slick, radio-ready, electro-tinged pop that eschew religious dogma for affable, everyman spirituality. A pulsating, relentlessly positive set of tunes that toggle between the dancefloor, the bedroom window, and the open road, the 12-track
Eye On It represents
tobyMac's most accessible collection of songs to date. Fat synth saw leads dominate the more club-oriented cuts like the propulsive title cut, "Me Without You," and "Unstoppable," which features guest vocals from Blanca Callahan of
Group 1 Crew, while
McKeehan adopts a decidedly more introspective temperament on more midtempo numbers like "Steal My Show," Lose Yourself," and "Forgiveness," the latter of which, in a nod to
dc Talk-era
McKeehan's hip-hop days, includes an appearance by rapper/producer/actor
Lecrae. In keeping with the tradition of
tobyMac's reputation for mixing things up in the genre department,
Eye On It ends on a truly whimsical note with "My Favorite Song," an inspirational, feel-good romp that pairs the heart-on-its-sleeve piano pop of
Fun.'s "We are Young" (with predictably less debauched trappings) with the bottle-swinging camaraderie of a barrelhouse singalong, resulting in a whole new CCM subgenre that's best described as christian electro-ragtime. ~ James Christopher Monger