The Follower Of Christ – Holy Mountain + Hallelujah Bonus Tracks

The Follower Of Christ – Holy Mountain – Album Review + Hallelujah Bonus Tracks

“For brothers and sisters who praise the Lord and climb the mountains.”

Uh oh.  Gonna have to try and find my way in here to Holy Mountain – I’m neither of those things.

So…it’s fair to say that I’ve definitely got some legitimate concerns that extend far beyond religion…but we’ll get to those as this review carries on.  For now, we’ll take this a piece at a time as it comes, and I’ll make sure to circle back and address some stuff as we check out Holy Mountain from The Follower Of Christ and a few bonus tracks from an album called Hallelujah as well.  First impressions always matter – and while “Holy Mountain” is built with a bare-bones framework that will become very familiar to you over the course of listening to this record, I felt like my opinion was favorable enough as the record began.  “Holy Mountain” does end up feeling like it’s an intro of sorts as you’re introduced to a humble combination of guitar and vocals.  None of it seems too hurried in terms of its pace inside the song and the music from the guitar…the vocals have more of a challenge getting to all those words in each verse, but I felt like “Holy Mountain” continued to gather strength from the microphone.  We’ll address this more later on down the road, but it’s pretty clear that one element stands out, the other not so much.

Personally, I really like the voice we hear in these songs.  Even though there’s not a doubt in my mind that we can hear more raw potential than the vocals being fully realized to their maximum effect just yet, the parts being written in the vocal melody work really well.  From here, it’s all about refinement.  Take a track like “Summit Rendezvous” for example.  Great ideas, wonderful imagery in the lyricism, and a noticeably uneven performance.  As the mighty Meat Loaf would tell ya, “two outta three ain’t bad.”  What he neglected to mention in that song however, is that two outta three also makes for what could easily be perceived as an extra obstacle that threatens the playability of music if you’re not too careful.  So…don’t get me wrong – The Follower Of Christ is delivering consistently at about 90-95% of the right notes & tones you’d wanna hear at the right times – but it’s that 5% where he could arguably do things better somehow, that is going to haunt the guy for years after and eventually make him wonder why he was speeding along so quickly releasing multiple records rather than refining the material as needed.  I’m happy enough with what I hear on “Summit Rendezvous” because I like the vocals, but The Follower Of Christ has to ask himself whether or not ‘happy enough’ was the goal he was aiming for, you feel me?

“Climbing For His Glory” is where I started to realize how similar the fundamentals of the material was going to be from track to track.  Look at it this way – “Climbing For His Glory” is probably one of the most different cuts on the record to an extent when it comes to how it sounds, but it’s still very much a dude on the guitar with a spacious way of strumming…and that’s essentially it.  You get the sense that if you gave The Follower Of Christ a couple chords and some space to play, he’d naturally find some vocals that could fit into just about any scenario.  So…in a way, we kind of have to take the normal concept of what we associate with typical songwriting and throw it right out the window – because that’s not really the goal here.  The Follower Of Christ is writing praise material and drawing from an endless well of that singular approach…and hey, no disrespect to the man if that’s what he was aiming to do.  But you hear things like the slight timing issues on a track like “Climbing For His Glory” and what is objectively the same methods being applied to how the songs are being structured overall, and you have to wonder if there’s not a whole lot of opportunity for further diversity and creativity that’s being altogether missed.

Objectivity is about the hardest commodity to come by for any artist – and it becomes even more rare when you’re locked into the realm of constant creation & don’t allow yourself the break you’d need to hear things like we’d hear’em on the other side of the speakers.  For example, I give you exhibit A – “Psalm 2.”  This was about where I realized that The Follower Of Christ almost always simultaneously starts playing his guitar at roughly the same time he starts singing – and he’ll do that on every single song.  You might get a couple notes here & there for a beat or two before he sings on occasion, but not usually…for the most part, he’s fused to the strumming of his guitar.  And because I’ll tell ya the things that others won’t, I’ll let you in on a little secret – the guitar is a crutch, and practically unnecessary to what The Follower Of Christ is doing.  I’m being serious – if I was this guy, I’d be extremely tempted to go completely a cappella, because it’s his voice that is continually doing the heaviest lifting.  The vocals are always remarkably gripping, and they’re constantly being propped up by a supporting instrument that doesn’t have that same level of charisma or ability to captivate us.  As I’ve mentioned countless times on these pages of ours, if something you’re doing isn’t adding to a song you’re making, it’s likely taking something away…and part of me wonders whether or not it might actually be a whole lot more interesting to hear The Follower Of Christ unencumbered with guitar duties and freed to sing his best.

Ultimately, it leaves you with a couple options.  One would be that you remove the parts that aren’t making a significant contribution, or you go the opposite route and spend the required hours to beef up your skills where they need it.  Unfortunately, I don’t know of any real shortcuts or we’d all be using them.  Do I think that becoming a better guitar player would help a song like “Holy Name?”  Not really if I’m being honest with you, but it certainly couldn’t hurt it either, you know what I mean?  Going the route where The Follower Of Christ would put down the guitar & just concentrate on his core strengths as a singer could be a great thing – like I’ve maintained from the get-go, the guy can definitely sing.  If he lets the axe go, he’s got that much more freedom to focus on what makes the material diverse.  If he opens up the doors to the possibility of other players playing along with him, the obviously that’s going to expand the potential of what can be done with the music as well.  Right now, my main concerns are that he’s doing too much & not enough at the same time if the goals are to reach the average everyday listeners out there.  I think we have to be realistic and assume that it’s not the goal though – I think The Follower Of Christ is happy to do what he’s doing and sing his praise-based songs to a faith-based crowd – there’s no shame in that.  If he’s looking to reach other folks though, the music needs more versatility.

I think there’s an argument to be made that The Follower Of Christ’s larger goal is to become part of the ministry.  I like the occasional moments he’s put in before a song will start, where he’s just preaching a little bit.  Content-wise, obviously it’s not aimed at converting people like me, but it’s real to him, and I can appreciate that he wants to share the good word with other like-minded people out there.  All the more power to him as far as I’m concerned.  But yeah…with respect to that, I’d tell The Follower Of Christ to not shy away from talking more prior to playing – I think a lot of people out there will connect with the message he wants to communicate to you, and I feel like his natural character is quite endearing as well.  Like, I might not be a religious person these days myself, but that doesn’t stop me from rooting for a guy like The Follower Of Christ to succeed, you know what I mean?  I think you listen to tracks like “By The Spirit” and you know this guy has got his heart in the right place.  He’s got a real gift with that voice of his – even in the spots where he’s humming on “By The Spirit,” you can’t take your ears off the guy.  Lyrically, even though the material is overtly religious & quite proud to be so, I feel like the tremendous detail and imagery in his words is stellar support to the emotional sound of his singing.

You’ll have to forgive me folks…it’s my job to challenge artists and encourage them to level up in just about every situation.  If there’s something valid to say, I’m always willing to say it.  “So let me tell the truth,” as The Follower Of Christ mentions on “Got To Lose” – there are no rules when it comes to making music.  No one says you HAVE to do anything.  If The Follower Of Christ is happy with what he’s doing, than that is honestly enough.  The people out there that connect with it, will continue to do so – and if that’s satisfying to The Follower Of Christ, that’s all it needs to be.  If he’s looking to take his music to the next level and/or have it contain the power & potential to speak to the unconverted, he’s gotta spend the time sharpening up the corners.  The slight timing issues that are likely the result of this man pushing record and letting it rip live with his vocals & guitar at the same time, could easily be resolved by handling things a piece at a time.  Obviously playing live is an it is what it is situation, there are always going to be a couple of flaws – but when it comes to putting out a recorded album in a world overstuffed with content, it’s pretty darn crucial to make sure everything lines up how it’s supposed to.  I like the way he sings “Got To Lose,” but I think it’s probably been pretty clear that the vocals are where I feel like The Follower Of Christ shows us his main strengths.  The more space he uses to really belt it out, like where you hear him spread out in the space of the chorus rather than how he’s been jamming the words in throughout the verses, plays largely to his benefit & ours; he gets more room to sing, and the results sound much better to us overall.  There are always positives to be found in what he’s doing.

Like, as I listened to “To The Mountains, Through The Snow,” I couldn’t help but again come to the conclusion that this man really doesn’t need his guitar to prop him up.  If I was walking down the street and The Follower Of Christ was just singing out loud on the corner, you can safely bet I’d stop to listen.  All he needs is an amp for his voice and his natural gift for melody, and he’d be completely all set with everything he needs.  The guitar he’s been playing is only serving to supply an accent to the melody he’s already put into his words…and I’m just not hearing anything that really requires it to be there inside of any of these songs.  Think of it in the context of the law of averages.  If you’ve got someone like The Follower Of Christ who can sing at an A level, but plays guitar around a C or a C+, then even in the best case scenario where you’ve got a great song, combining those elements together puts you around a B or a B-, you get what I mean?  If you took out the element that was holding you back, or handed those instrumentation duties to someone else, you’d presumably be right back up to that A-caliber performance, right?  This isn’t me bagging on his guitar playing – it’s sufficient and it allows him to do what he’s been doing, and if that’s all that he wants it to be, the rock on I say – but if he’s looking to reach that all-important next level, The Follower Of Christ will have to make some important decisions.

Holy Mountain ends with “Days Of Old,” and that feels like the right place to end it, generally speaking.  There is a metric TON of other music that The Follower Of Christ has put out this year, and we’ll discuss a bit more of it before we’re outta here today…but he’s essentially swarmed your speakers this year with a constant stream of material that is very much following a similar script.  Not in the biblical sense, which…well…I mean it IS following the teachings of Christ and whatnot…but I mean similar script in the sense that the approach & method that he applies to each song doesn’t deviate all that much.  So when you think of the context of one album’s lineup and how that can be tough to navigate for the average everyday listeners out there – you’re seriously stacking the odds against you even further if you’re not doing enough to differentiate the material from album to album in a series of closely released records.  Think of it this way – we’re already competing with every other artist & band under the sun and their entire catalog from the start of music’s history on-forward through the power of the internet – the last person you want to compete with is yourself too, right?  You need to give people the opportunity to really dig in & take their time to listen – but you also have to supply the reasons they’d wanna do that too.  The Follower Of Christ is well-versed in his faith and clearly wants to do his part in bringing people to the light of the Lord in his own way…and I’m not knocking his ambition to do that so much as I’m merely pointing out there are about a million ways he could do that, and he’s effectively been choosing one.  Diversify the material, switch things up, challenge yourself to do more with what you’ve got The Follower Of Christ…I can guarantee that the more that you do that, the stronger the response will be.

But wait!  There’s more!

I started checking out the beginning of The Follower Of Christ’s album Hallelujah as well, which started out with the title track.  No substantial objections from me based on what’s here…which is…admittedly, a bit on the sparse side of things like what we just experienced with Holy Mountain.  “Hallelujah” is just guitar and vocals, so there’s not a whole lot to judge or critique when it comes right down to it.  Is there some risk being taken here by The Follower Of Christ?  Certainly.  I don’t know that I could definitively say that there’s quite enough here for the average everyday listeners to stay engaged with, though I’d readily tell ya that the vocals give this song a legitimate chance of beating the odds.  As a first impression or an introductory track, “Hallelujah” is as effective as what we experienced with “Holy Mountain” being the first song on the last record I just reviewed – it’s not until you realize that the surrounding material all follows the same approach that it starts to really water down its potential reach.  As much as I love listening to this dude sing, which for the record I do, I’m gonna have to die on this hill where I’m saying that he should really go piece by piece when it comes to the recording to get the best outta both worlds if he’s gonna sing and play at the same time.  I admire his passion though, it’s definitely unwavering.

Then we start to see how the dangers of rushing things can be detrimental once again.  I’ve lost count of how many albums The Follower Of Christ has dropped here in 2025, but rest assured, there’s a whole bunch…ten maybe?  I think there’s at least nine if my math is correct, which is more than an album a month so far – and that’s an insane rate to be putting out music at, no matter who you are.  The problem with tracks like “For God So Greatly Loved The World” is that if all the songs are going to follow a similar path in terms of structure and how things are going to be played…I just think it’s going to leave people wanting and a little bit restless.  A dude and a guitar has been a thing for as long as any of us can remember…so yeah man, there’s plenty of risk being taken here – with so many options of what to listen to, I think The Follower Of Christ really has to examine whether there’s really enough going on here to retain the audience and/or get them excited about what they hear, versus whether or not these songs are the barebones framework of ideas that could be further developed.  Dude sounds like the singer for Cool For August on “For God So Greatly Loved The World,” and personally, I dig that.  Sometimes he kinda sounds like Ed Kowalczyk from Live too, which is another cool comparison.  Is there enough here to keep us coming back to this song for another spin?  I think that’s extremely debatable.

Yep.  There are concerns here.  I generally have concerns with all kinds of patterns when there’s not enough deviation.  Vocally, let’s not get this twisted – The Follower Of Christ can sing…I’ve said it time and time again, he’s got a great voice, and if he wasn’t so focused on strumming his guitar one outta every four beats, I think he’d be an even greater singer.  The main issue is that the strengths just aren’t as balanced as you’d hope they would be.  Dude can sing without a doubt – but the guitar playing is alright at best…that’s just the objective truth.  Doesn’t mean it can’t get better – but it does imply that there could be a whole lot more care being put into what’s being released, especially at the rate it’s currently being done at.  Like, imagine The Follower Of Christ released an album every two months instead of more than one a month like he’s currently doing now – we could have a whole different ballgame where the details would have the opportunity to matter.  As you listen to “Faith In Heaven,” you can’t help but want a bit more.  Great vocals are always going to be appealing, but beyond that, there’s just not enough here beyond the songwriting…and our ears need those kind of details to keep our interest.  Right now, he’s got what sounds like good sketches of demo material that need further development.  I do think the actual line of “Faith In Heaven” could be the most potent and memorable hook I’ve heard in any of the songs I’ve found in review here though…great ideas found in this melody.

Dude just needs a full band, or to separate himself from that pesky guitar when it comes time to hit the record button…that’s kinda the reality here.  Vocally, I think he’s got a lot of excellent ideas & melodies that’ll carry him about as far as they could go without more going on in the music, but if The Follower Of Christ is looking to grow his audience and bring people in to listen, he’s gotta offer them more than what’s happening here on tracks like “The Way” & the others I’ve checked out on Hallelujah.  It doesn’t do any good for The Follower Of Christ to flood the zone with music that should still be cookin’ in the incubator…these tunes from Hallelujah and Holy Mountain sound like they’re in the beginning stages of what they could go on to become, rather than being songs that are completely ready for the masses in the state they’re in.  I’m continually impressed by how well he sings & the quality of the vocal melodies he’s come up with for these songs – like, the chorus on “The Way” is another exceptional idea that could really go on to make an impact on listeners – but that’s about where it all begins and ends…it’s really hard to judge these tunes when there’s so little to them.  It’s got a bit of an isolated & meditative vibe to’em…and that might go down well with some…but if we’re talkin’ about the larger picture, The Follower Of Christ has gotta stop moving so quickly to get more music out there and taking the strategy that quantity is going to beat quality…mainly because that’s not how listeners receive it…they tend to consider what matters in the art of making music is directly related to the fluidity within the craftsmanship.  Believe me, I’d love to tell ya that a great idea will get ya by, but the masses usually demand a bit more outta the music they’re listening to.  The Follower Of Christ can get more out of the material and his efforts, this much I know.  He’s clearly got a vision for what he wants to communicate to you, and from here on in, it’s about refining that message so that it reaches the people, as intended.

Find out more about The Follower Of Christ at his official page at Soundcloud here:  https://soundcloud.com/the-follower-of-christ

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