Eye on It

Recording information: FabMusic, Franklin, TN; The Blue Room, Franklin, TN.
Photographer: Lee Steffen .
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