Strange as Angels

This is so much more than the average easy-listening crap you are forced to endure at your relatives’ wedding receptions. As an indicator of the incredible things you will find on All Roads Lead Here, the first track, “Wonderful You,” is also the last track on the album, only in “dance mix” form (because you just can’t get enough). Like the other songs, it will bring tears to your eyes. There’s an odor of Christian rock here (which could very well explain everything), but the awful, mawkish lyrics are vague enough to be inconclusive. The only thing as vapid and hackneyed as the song titles — “Shining Star,” “Think of You,” “Coming Home,” etc. — is the music itself, which largely consists of guitar, synthesizer and the always-wise-when-you-want-to-be-taken-seriously drum machine. What makes it so laughably awesome are the vocals — apparently there is a monstrous hybrid of Neil Diamond, Steve Perry and early-’80s pop star Jack Wagner living in Lee’s Summit. I can’t recommend All Roads highly enough. Too few things in life make you want to laugh and dry heave at the same time.