Within a 13-year stretch that's spawned 10 studio albums and a greatest hits package, 4HIM has become known for its hearty vocal harmonies, soothing pop beats and uplifting lyrics that will stand the test of time. Cuts such as "For Future Generations," "Where There is Faith," "The Basics of Life" and "The Message" are now contemporary Christian classics, leading to career sales of more than two million albums. Following 4HIM's mid-'90s heyday tours with Point Of Grace (sold out coast-to-coast), the band chronicled its achievements on The Best Ones collection, followed by the return-to-roots praise project Hymns—A Place of Worship, and 2001's pop-oriented Walk On.

For Visible, the veteran quartet—Andy Chrisman, Kirk Sullivan, Mark Harris and Marty Magehee—joined up with primary producers Pete Kipley (MercyMe, Rebecca St. James) and Michael Omartian (Eric Clapton, Christopher Cross, Amy Grant). Magehee lended production assistance on one track, and Harris penned the title track and co-wrote seven others. On paper, this strategy may have looked solid. But on the disc, everything but the material produced by Omartian falls short of the quality of the group's past catalog.

Early evidence comes in the generic pop-rock of "Fill The Earth," where the same pool of Nashville studio musicians used on countless contemporary Christian projects (spearheaded by guitarist Chris Rodriquez) leads to indistinguishable blandness. The similarly generic ballad "You Reign" includes sterile orchestration (a desperate throwback to "Great Awakening") and backing beats that seem to go nowhere. The breezy cover of the Planet Shakers' "It's All About Jesus" could have been promising (the Henry Seeley-led band is known for its innovative worship arrangements), but 4HIM puts its predictable spin on the track, making it quite forgettable.

Despite misgivings about the record overall, I applaud 4HIM for its collaborations with Omartian, which are the record's only significant stretches of creativity and arrangement intricacy. "The Final Word" gets a much needed funky facelift with brisk studio loops, a bustling bass line, and soulful harmonies, as does the mid-tempo pop of "Bigger Than Life," sprinkled lightly with a Chicago-esque horn section. "Candle In The Rain" makes a much more effective use of orchestration—it fits tastefully with the glorious piano arrangements and the vocalists' most consistent tradeoffs on the whole record.

Unfortunately, those three tracks' merit don't make up for the record's shortcomings and similarities, making Visible a tough disc to recommend to anyone but longtime fans. That's not to say that 4HIM's best days are behind them. But this project would have been much better had the members and Kipley stretched their boundaries beyond Christian music comfort zones.

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