::ALBUM REVIEW::

Martha Munizzi, the soul sister in white skin, is at it again. After her independent project, "The Best Is Yet To Come", shot up the Billboard Gospel charts last year and held a reigning period at the top, Munizzi is back and she's back with attitude. Her journey to her current platform seems like a page taken from a fairy tale. After she penned the modern classic, "Because Of Who You Are" and artists including Vickie Yohe, Juanita Bynum, Paul S. Morton and Karen Clark-Sheard grabbed a hold to her compositions, the gospel world began to pay her serious attention for her songwriting skills. Now working alongside Integrity Music for distribution purposes, Munizzi reveals her latest project, "No Limits"; a two-CD collection recorded at the Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Joining with her this time to handle production duties is Fred Hammond's former musical director, Noel Hall, whom is fairly knew to handling weighty projects by himself. But his expertise of the business and his excellent keyboard performances helped prepare him for this one. The end result is a project, styled like the live segment of Fred Hammond's "Pages Of Life", but with charging and crispy drum beats from Calvin Rodgers and extra help from Tommie Walker (Fred Hammond) and Eric Reed.

Comparisons are sure to take place of former and latter projects. While "The Best Is Yet To Come" flowed like a full-length concert at a reasonable 74 minutes set-up, this one is spread out across two discs, totaling with twenty-two tracks in all, and feels uneven. Disc One opens with five fast songs and ends with slow tunes. Disc Two picks up from there, like an intermission, with slow ballads taking six of the tracks in the beginning and later closing with a few uptempo, hip-hop influenced tunes. We are pretty sure that much of the live recording was preserved and placed on this project. If you are mathematically correct you will discover the project reaches the 100-plus minute mark. For someone new to Munizzi's ministry, this is just a bit too much to digest - which is usually a strategic move from labels to get people's attention. But sometimes, less is more. If only this project was condensed to a single disc format and the best of the cuts were selected, the project would have stood against her former album release. There are also lengthy preludes, wordy introductions and over-extended moments of worship placed here, which hurts the reasons of assembling two CDs in the first place.

But when one looks beyond those set-backs, you can find Martha Munizzi doing what she does best. Her vocals are still as graceful and innocent as ever and her worship leading is warmer than her previous collections. She also throws out some catchy riffs and sporadic vocal thrills that is sure to add props to her name as a gifted vocalist. Plus, there are good cuts available. "Renew Me", penned by Munizzi, is a beautiful slow-tempo track flowing in a majestic flow of soft piano and sweet background vocals set upon unison chants. And when the vamp arrives, the song flows into a R&B-contemporary styled groove enriched with intimacy and fervor. Expect for this one to crawl to the forefront of her successful tunes; even if the song stretches to a massive eight minutes - and that's if you exclude the following interlude. "Always Welcome" finds Mary Alessi, guesting alongside her twin sister. The song, penned by Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff and Alessi, is a goregous, touching tune decorated with therapeutic contemporary-jazz sound and soulful lyrics. And if you are not careful, you may get confuse on who's who. "Name Above All Names", expected to be released as a single, possesses a pop musical flavor while the lyrics expresses the rainbow of names God inhabits. "You've Been So Good" sounds like Kirk Franklin's "Brighter Day" in certain pockets, but the groove is less accented and more attention is on the flow of the lyrics upon its urban-gospel chord structures. Sad to say, you gotta fight through the first disc and half of the second one to get to this cut, but it's definitely worth finding. A morning breeze on a cloudless day in the Spring time. Other honorable mentions include "Great Exchange" (would've been nice to hear a house version of this), "I Believe God" and the revisit to "Forever, You're My King" (first revealed on Carlton Pearson's "Azusa Praise: Jubilee").

Some songs offered here may or may not impress; depending on the listener's tastebuds. "Till The Walls Fall" is border-line rock, with pieces of hardcore funk, and bears images of Israel Houghton's fast-paced outfits, but the song features multiple sections and it's just a bit too much to digest in three listens. The title cut may bear the right album title for this one, but the song is far from being one of Munizzi's finest. It's not as memorable as her previous funky tunes. "Jesus Is The Best Thing" tries too hard to please two specific audiences: hip-hop and Island-calypso fans. Both styles are merged together here, with Byron Chambers providing vocodor skills and rap duties beside Munizzi. She even shouts out "Hollah!" towards the end of the cut; sounding the alarm that Munizzi is most comfortable with her "black roots". The move may be analyzed as being a risky option for the renowned worship leader, but the song feels cheesy in the chorus and sounds a bit too much to digest for some of her fanbase. But people have different tastebuds and Munizzi tries not to get too comfortable with a certain style on "No Limits". Fans of serious, lengthy, epic-formatted worship albums will find this one to be a worthy experience from beginning to end, but it is a bulky project and separates a good bulk of the best from the rest of the best. The album can still be enjoyed - you may have to skip across a few tracks and ignore the album-fillers (preludes, broken-up medleys, etc.), but the extra effort helps in increasing the replay level. Just make sure you have both discs on you.